Bueno, entonces…is better than Rosetta Stone

I have included this comparison chart to give you the data straightforward regarding what you get when you purchase the Bueno, entonces…program. I have years of experience teaching and there are straightforward ways to convey information if you really want someone to engage and learn the material. For me this is: entertainment value of what you are saying, making the material relevant to the students life (accessing prior knowledge), and if working with older students – anytime you can relate the material to sex, drugs, or taboo’s you will have rapt attention from everyone. This program accomplishes all of these learning strategies and it really is a cheap excellent way to learn spanish. Granted you are not going to come out speaking perfect spanish, you have to practice using the language in the real world and hear other peoples accents. But is you follow along repeating everything they say and look at the words spelled on the “magic whiteboard” you learn so much. You don’t even realize how much you are learning because the humor carries the information straight into your brain. It is like a catchy jingle that you find yourself humming. Sometimes I am conversing in spanish with people and don’t even know where I got the words I am using…then a foolish David pops into my head doing a strip dance or something else from the program. I give this the highest recommendations and think that this would be an excellent supplemental program for any college spanish course or prep before studying abroad. They even include an entire slang dictionary (which is genius, I have some friends down here that only speak in slang) and support material for each lesson. For me, I think 

Bueno, entonces… is far superior to Rosetta Stone.

no me gustan los strippers

This image is pretty hilarious to me because I was walking with a friend today to find an art store in La Boca and we spotted a really cool hooded jacket in a store window. He is learning to speak spanish and went into the store to ask if he could try on the jacket in the window but totally called it a dress! The man looked at him and pulled a dress out behind the counter and then we all laughed so hard. 

This same friend lives with me in the art collective in La Boca and he walked into my room the other night when I was taking my spanish lesson  with Bueno, entonces…He set down to watch it with me and was laughing so hard saying “this program is incredible! I can’t believe it, its like a funny show!” It was another reality check how different it is. I have seen so many lessons now I have become used to being highly entertained while learning, but it was a great reminder as to how well done this language learning tool is. In lesson 27 they talk about the ritual of the bachelor party and David even gives an absurd strip dance in the sound booth. Something I learned from this lesson that I have been saying wrong for months now is “Mi encantaria!” When someone asks you if you can do something and you reply with this you are actually saying “I would love to but unfortunately cannot.” I have said this so many times and wondered why there was confusion following my reply…now I see. 

Take a look at the below slide. I had to insert it just to challenge you to find me a better spanish program then this. Granted, not everything is about sex and having a good time in life – but shouldn’t it be?

: )

Voy a bailar como un mono

I had my first new spanish class in a school in Palermo today. The teacher was significantly impressed with my level of spanish (thank you Bueno, entonces…) and it seems like a good fit there for me. I came home and began painting an idea that is so genius I had trouble falling asleep, I was am excited about it! I keep alluding to said new discovery due to the fact that I can’t share it yet because I don’t want anyone to jump the gun on me. Suffice to say, when it have finished a set I shall post pictures of my art. Another great complement to my spanish speaking skills…I was chatting up the kiosko guy and he thought I was from Italy – AWESOME! gringo accent is not reigning supreme! I have been working really hard on the rolling of my rr’s and a nice speaking cadence. Class 25 covers some future tenses and reminds me how happy I am to be learning spanish in a country that basically uses the very IR + INFINITIVE. For example…Voy a caminar por la playa. Or, voy a hablar con mi hermano. You can changing anything in the future by saying ”I am going to…”  I do not need another set of verb conjugations to worry about memorizing. I really wish Jimena could be my spanish teacher. She is my teacher in one form because I get to interact with her through her relationship with David in the program, but so much of learning Spanish is conversing and correcting your manner of speaking with another person.

His mom has a gigolo!

Well, this little dicho is too good to pass up. I will bring the bikini you bring the kisses. It reminds me of better times when the sun is shining and you can crack open a cold beer in the shade of your beach unbrella. QUE PASO BUENOS AIRES??? It is freezing. Moments like this and I am questioning the whole art co-op drafty 120 year old house in the middle of winter next to the most polluted body of water in the world. Ah La Boca you are a difficult love. Sometimes I am all about it, and other times she is just a dirty cold friend. Well, I should never complain. My life is to make art, music, and learn to speak spanish in Buenos Aires. In fact after writing that I feel better. Tomorrow I have to get up at 11am for a whopping 2 hours of work and then return to my art space to hang out and spread paint on a canvas while trying to make the strenuous decision of going to meet up with the circus in Peru this coming January. Rough life. My friends are in a great circus out of San Francisco called Dreamtime Family Circus, they are AMAZING!

I need to keep pushing the spanish for these upcoming possible South American adventures. Lesson 23 was pretty amazing where I learned quite a bit of vocabulary through David’s tales that his mother is running off to Mendoza for a weekend with a strong muscled young porteno tanguero who speaks no English, and she no spanish…hmmmm. And she is paying for the whole trip. Well David, more power to her I say! I have respect for the cougars, they help to tip the traditional sexist scale around. Why not, if everyone is having fun. I wonder what the spanish word for gigolo is?

mi palabra nuevo

Well, great news! I met an excellent man at a bar that my friends are interested in buying and opening in San Telmo. He is a writer and works for the Buenos Aires Herald, AND he wants to do a story on me and my experiences in Buenos Aires. It is linked to the bigger story of the very old buildings here in Argentina and that I live in a home over 120 years old in La Boca. Interesting enough he is including one other person in the article who happens to be the man who started  Bueno, entonces…What a synchronicity! Out of a city of 13million I seem to get involved in all the right groups and keep running into the same people. The writers name is Matt, and he came and took photos of me and my art work.  After finishing this blog I need to write back responses to the questions he is asking me. When it is published, I will post the link!

I am already in lesson 20, I can’t believe it, and yet the sex jokes keep rolling. I am also wondering how I have made it this long without learning the word for orgasm in spanish…ACABO

Acabo de llegar de mi clase de espanol – In this context it means I just arrived from my spanish class. But in another form –  siempre acabo con Diego – Means I always orgasm with Diego. I can see that is one palabra to be careful with. Watching the lessons feels like an addictive TV series where you are waiting to see what will happen next. David is ridiculous and asks to borrow Jimena’s apartment to have sex with another woman in her house because his mom is staying in his place…oh David…

my teacher is an old pervert

To acquire a new language is difficult. I waver between casually enjoying the process and declaring proclamations such as “I will NOT speak English in this country any more! Only Spanish, I must learn this language”. And then I carry my little dictionarrio around and try to be all studious and eventually realize this approach is not for me. I am on the look out for a new Spanish teacher to supplement my lessons through Bueno, entonces…for as great as the program is, I still need guided practice. I had an excellent teacher in theory until he tried to go through a lesson on the names of the body parts in Spanish by touching me…not that that hasn’t been one of my most dreamt of fantasies, it is just that it always features a drop dead gorgeous Spanish teacher followed by a lesson of the names of all the places in the house “mesa”, “cama”, “douche”. Well, I am done with male teachers, getting a female and sidestepping the whole problem. 

I thought my handle on the verb “to be” had gotten pretty good, but the reality is that it is still confusing. I realized this when lesson 19 went back and addressed “ser” and “estar”. I completely get the concept but these words are used so much in conversation I don’t even realize I am using them incorrectly. It is great to see the color coding the way they do it on the program because you see it in context and then it locks that image into your head for later use. This is also true for all of the masculine and feminine adjectives, the color coding is helping me to access it for later use in my vocabulary. 

secrete show!

As most of our shows have been on the streets of BsAs, it was a beautiful change to actually play in a bar. We called the show “from streets to seats” and it was in the incredible bar in Palermo that didn’t even have a name but an address that you have to ring and they unlock the door for you. Inside was beautiful art work and interesting decor, complete with the lower halves of women, all legs and sexy stockings. We set up in a back room that was very Victorian style with beautiful wood and elegant chairs. Many of our close friends came and piled into the cozy intimate space. We had a wonderful time, the harmonies were beautifully mixing, and we even had a friend come and play the cajon (Peruvian box drum). A special surprise came when the brother of the cajon player showed up and danced the most incredible flamenco and they sang old flamenco songs – they kind of stole the show, but we were a nice contrast with our strong female energy. We have video footage and will be recording a CD tomorrow, I LOVE THIS CITY!  

Clearly the art and music has been coming on strong, I just need to keep the momentum with the spanish. I am learning great things through Bueno, entonces…and as it is very street smart and nightlife aplicable, I put the lessons into direct practice right away. The program displays the verbs and conjugations so well with the color coding and all of the visual cues. It prevents the confusions between adjectives, verbs, nouns, feminine and masculine. A very hard concept for me in spanish are the reflexive verbs, but again they deal with what could be a boring subject in such a funny way that the concept gets directly wired to your brain.
Who wants to waste time learning to say “she has a white dog” when you can be learning much more applicable things (especially in this country) such as “tiene piel como chocolate blanco”.

Sexy Castellano!

Round 1 with my new Spanish program Bueno, entonces... and I love it!!! It is written how a spanish program for adults should be. I wish I would have known about it before coming to Argentina because it would have prepared me so much better for the trip. You get to experience the Argentine accent directly in the program and all kinds of cultural things relevant to BsAs. It has a super sexy twist to the lesson, and feels almost as if you are watching a funny sitcom – also the intro theme reminds me of my favorite show “Arrested Development”. 

This is definitely the best spanish program I have experienced. The interactions between Dave and Jimena are brilliant. Dave has a beautiful English accent and is learning to speak spanish while Jimena speaks clear and beautiful castellano – and she is super hot. The lessons are fun and interesting with adult language and humor making spanish learning accessible to the people who would be traveling, living, or studying abroad. I found myself having to pause the program while I laughed at Dave’s absurd comments. I really like that they included an explanation of the terms “yanqui” and “gringo” and where they came from, as well as the classic “stupid American” misnomer of claiming the title of “American” as for those solely in the U.S. when there is a vast amount of country known to the world as “America”.  Also, to have the verb for cuddling explained in the first lesson “hacer cucharita” pure genius…I have asked a number of people about this in spanish, and they thought to put it in the first lesson. Good job! Sometimes you need to let someone know…”sure you can come back but only to “hacer cucharita”…I have some more spanish lessons to get through before things get crazy chicos…

: )

Check out the video for a taste of Dave’s humor:

binky sucking pirate

Well, my last 24 hours have been something out of a twisted fairytale – a check to why I live in cities…the characters you can encounter with such frequency are overwhelming, sometimes the energy is just so, and they all come out of the cracks to congregate. It is like I am partaking in an offbeat martian comedy or something out of the parable of the poisoned well. I was in San Telmo around 4 in the am, street drinking with a group of friends and misfits when my body becomes suddenly aware of a creature before I even get a visual. Milling about yet close to the group, he was a beraggeled trip. With a fit of nappy hair, tangled beard, massive duct tape backpack, and one piece jumper. His steps were far apart with bent knees, moving close to the ground and pirate eyeing our group, circling, yet keeping a good brick throws distance. The real kicker – a neon pink pacifier in his mouth all the while sucking hungrily. We decide to move on to a corner under a beautiful lamplight so my friends could preform. Our group was quite the motley crew as well – toothless older dude who had a never ending supply of tall tales, a gaucho cowboy esque man who plays the cajon and sings wonderful flamenco, his incredibly gay mormon brother who click clacks in his high heeled dancing shoes and speaks such fast castellano slang (thank god for Bueno, entonces…)my head spun trying to get a handle on what the hell we were laughing about, my doll like sweet friend with a glow like a bottecelli, a blue haired punky street kid, and some Austraillians (It seems like the Aussies are everywhere, they are like movie extras in my life). So, we head under the street light, on a misty night kickin it down a cobblestone street in the beautiful antique barrio. Pirate binky sucker follows in the shadows. When we proceed to stoop it under that beautiful orb and my friend breaks incredible rhythms on the cajon and song, his brother throws down a wooden board and dances the most amazing high speed flamenco tap with extraordinary elaborate and exaggerated hand gestures remanecint of New Zealand bird mating dances. In my visual I have the creature, who quickly slinks over onto an open lit area of the side walk (there are a good 15 people around, mind you) and takes a shit. He then then proceeds to guard his creation, walking the perimeter, almost like he was taking reconnaissance. Between the flamboyant dancing and the binky sucking feces circling pirate I lost it and laughed so hard I about peed myself. Back in San Telmo this afternoon, I went with a friend to play guitar and sing to the streets in the sunshine. Again I found myself surrounded with a group of the strangest cats…one man who played and sang deep tango love songs fully acting them out with guitar and complete chamuyero drama, a young street kid who couldn’t get enough of our deep south blue grass songs, an older matronly piano teacher, and an old man from Uraguay who also sang tango loud enough to keep the pigeons off of our empanadas. We passed around guitars and shared music, ending up in a parrilla where they gave us free beer, wine, and food while we brought the house down with songs sitting at the bar. Music is the vibration of unity bringing us all together. Its power to connect cultures and age groups, creatures and freaks is just endless. What a day!

El hormiguita!

Lesson 14 has mirrored my life in a pretty interesting way. Two things that have happened to me down here, both of which are quite hilarious. Once, when I was first learning spanish in my first week, part of my study routine was to head to the bar and have a beer to take the edge off the whole learning process. As it were, I was living with an Argentine woman, and came home fairly tipsy around 7 pm…that is like lunch time by Argentine standards. So, feeling abit embarrassed for my inebriated state, I decided to head into the shower and then put myself to bed early. To tell her this I say something along the lines of “nesecito la basura”, She quite rightly loks at me very confused, I then again state, this time with hand jestures to explain, “necesito la basura, lavo con basura”. I think I am saying that I need to use the bathroom, the shower, In fact I am saying I need to wash myself in trash. Dear god. We laughed so hard once the mix up was clear…

Yesterday I met El Hormiguita. He is a huge ant man. A man dressed as an art super hero who cruises around La Boca. He is fabulous and introduced my friend and I to all the musicians and street vendors so we could busk for money in the streets. Brilliant.

Lesson 14 contains both of my favorite things in a funny way: ants and trash…

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