I’m technically two days late, but I figured this was an appropriate time to give a little ode to my favorite author, Jane Austen (born December 16, 1775).

I’ve read all of Ms. Austen’s completed novels at least once, and her incomplete works are on my to-read list, too {Thanks, Moondoggie, for buying me her complete works one Christmas}. Off the top of my head, I’d have to say Pride and Prejudice is my favorite, but in order to sound like I’m just picking the most popular, I think I’m going to commit to rereading all of her novels in 2009 in order to make sure that choice still holds true.

I’ve loved every movie/miniseries adaptation that I’ve seen (even though, naturally they don’t do the actual novel justice) and I also have enjoyed some “sequels” or modern-day Austen-like tales like Elizabeth Aston’s series that starts with Mr. Darcy’s Daughters. I don’t know quite what it is about the regency era that I love so much… but here are a few of my favorite (and somewhat generalized) things about Jane Austen’s works.

• Happy endings~ this is always a big one for me, and I find it especially meaningful when you consider that Jane herself did not have her own happy love-story ending), not to mention there is often a very real tension in her love stories that I love.
• The heroes~ they’re amazing men–while flawed, they still always have many virtues and I imagine them to be as handsome as the men that play them in the movies. They’re passionate, chivalrous, often literary, but still very manly.
• The heroines~ all of the heroines are strong women, in their own way. They have their (realistic) imperfections to be sure, but they’re not superficial or overly-flawed characters (which is something that bugs me). They love passionately, are dreamers & fighters, they have integrity & good morals, but they know how to have fun.
• Feminism~ I don’t tend to call myself a feminist by modern-day standards, but I love how Austen criticizes the society she was a part of, while portraying women that also just did what they had to do. They may long for “more,” they may consider whether marriage should be their only means of making something for themselves or their family, or even complain about their situation, but they don’t rebel against the society completely– they still embrace motherhood, marriage, and of course true love.
• Details~ the stories are intricate, and the cultural details are apparent, really bringing to life an era that would otherwise be dead to my modern mind and understanding.
• Conflict~ Ms. Austen was an absolute genius when it comes to creating conflict and therefore, viable plots, in her novels, always knowing exactly what horrible things to do to her characters and their love lives (although, thankfully, always rectifying everything, very passionately, in the end).
• Lanugage~ I get lost in the language, words like felicity, and mischance, and thither… okay, that line’s not mine, I stole it from You’ve Got Mail, but I’ll too admit that there’s a lot of romance in reading a novel from that era and getting caught up in the vocabulary.

Are you a Jane-ite? What’s your favorite novel?

Oh, and here are a few fun sites to check out if you are a fan:

• AustenBlog
• Jane Austen Quote of the Day
• Austen-tatious (no longer being updated, but still cool)

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First of all, I just want to confess that I’ve been totally slacking on speaking Spanish with Chiquita. Does anyone else who speaks a second language with their child(ren) go through phases like this where you feel lazy and/or unmovitvated? For me, it’s mostly been because of busyness, as we packed and moved, and now that the holiday season has set in.

I’ll say little phrases to her here and there and it still amazes me that she responds, understands and attempts to reply in Spanish for certain words/phrases– mainly the words that she signs–but I’ve been slacking on giving her solid hours of hearing me speak only Spanish like I had hoped to do every morning. I’m sure this phase will pass and I will start back up again soon, but this is where we’re at right now. I still hope to get her registered in a toddler language class and I feel like this will motivate me more. Any other recommendations on getting and staying motivated?

A few recent language links…

• Spanish Lesson Plans for Children pointed out some resources for Christian worship music in Spanish
• Foreign Language Fun is having a sale on their holiday-related Spanish & French resources until 12/18
• Think Spanish‘s blog has an article available about the Christmas traditions in South America
• Eleena @ Voices en Español has a great review about a new online video resource called Bablingua

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I decided I’m going to do some holiday-themed translations over the next couple of weeks. So for those of you who’ve been wondering what these words from the popular song by Jose Feliciano mean, here you go!

Feliz Navidad,

Prospero Año y Felicidad

[fay-LEES nah-vee-DAWD,
pros-PEAR-oh AH-nyo ee fay-lee-cee-DAWD]

Most people probably know that the first phrase of this song’s chorus means Merry Christmas, and the rest of it translates in English to wishing someone a Prosperous New Year and Happiness.

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I’ve heard over and over that living in a Spanish-speaking country is one of the best ways to learn the language. Well, that’s all fine and good, except perhaps like some of you, I lack the funds right now to travel however much I would LOVE to go. So, how to immerse yourself in the language? Let’s go on a little trip.

First stop will be music/educational CDs and podcasts. I use these in two ways – active and inactive. Sometimes I sit with my children as we listen and talk about what’s going on and other times I just have it on in the background as we’re doing quiet things such as putting together puzzles or working on a craft. We also listen to them in the car which is great because your kids are pretty much a captive audience.

Some of our favorite CDs & Podcasts:

For the kids:

• Professor Pocket
• Play & Learn Spanish
• We Are Little Amigos
• Teach Me Spanish series
• José-Luis Orozco
• Cody’s Cuentos

For the adults:

• SpanishPod
• ShowTime Spanish
• Coffee Break Spanish
• SSL4YOU Spanish Segunda Lengua

Our second stop will be DVDs, TV shows and online videos. Some of you probably have quite a few DVDs already and most likely many of them have a Spanish-language track. Then there is the SAP (second audio program) option on your television. Usually you can access this option on your remote. For ours it’s the MTS button. I have found that several children shows on PBS have a Spanish-language track. Another alternative are online videos. I have some listed here: http://delicious.com/Karen427/Spanish+online_video.

Using the language interactively will be our final stop. Join a Spanish conversation group in town. A good place to start is meetup.com. There truly isn’t anything that will improve your language skills more than conversing with someone. You could also try to find a Spanish-language playgroup for your child. If there isn’t one, you could start one yourself.

If joining a group isn’t for you, then perhaps setting up an intercambio either in person or online suits you better. For half the time you and your partner could practice English and then Spanish for the other half. There are numerous web sites for this such as SharedTalk.com, Palabea.net, iTalki.com and more. Skype, which is available free, is the most common tool for these exchanges.
So, even though you may not have the funds to travel abroad, you can still immerse yourself in the language right at home. ¡Suerte!

Karen has lots more tips and resources for learners and teachers of Spanish, on her blog, Teaching and Learning Spanish!

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Since I’ve been a little sporadic lately, I’m going to slide back into the swing of things gently, so a simple word for today to express my happiness at being back in California:

playa

[PLY-yah]

which in English, means beach

aaaah, it’s good to be home.

P.S. Later this week I have a great guest post for you, and then next week I’ll write up a long-overdue Bilingual Chiquita Update! Chao!

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That’s right, I made it to 50,000 words! Here’s the proof:

My experience was a challenging one to be sure, but I was able to persevere (thanks in part to a 9,000 writing spree while we drove from Colorado to California and the modern convenience of electricity while camping). It was well worth the stress and time spent to be able to achieve an accomplishment like this.

A highlight was having an evening out at Caribou Coffee to write with my writing buddy “A Mom in the ‘Burbs,” which took me back to the days when my husband and I would spend late nights in local coffee shops attempting to study.

Thanks to everyone who wished me well and supported me, especially to my husband and parents who had to deal with me typing at particularly inappropriate times (i.e., when I should have been packing, unpacking or sitting by a campfire).

I’m really looking forward to the editing/rewriting stage as I still feel like the story is incomplete, but I’m thinking I’ll wait until 2009 for that.

Oh, and I only have a working title, which I’m not quite satisfied with, but here’s the tiny synopsis/teaser of the novel I wrote (I really like saying that):

Tara Donovan, 25, moves from L.A. to Denver to start life over as a freelance writer and part-time nanny for her nephews. A feminine, bookish type, she also has a passionate love for baseball, and may end up closer to the Colorado Rockies than even she could imagine.

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A Couple Links…

• Head over to Boca Beth‘s blog for a chance to win her Gigante Bag of goodies! It’s open until Monday, 11/17. These are great resources for teaching your little one Spanish!
• Teaching and Learning Spanish had a great post letting us know about ShowTime Spanish a podcast you download for free (or listen to via the web)

And now for the update…

As of yesterday I had written 24, 217 words, which is just about 800 words over the targeted word count. I had a bit of a slow week, but thankfully my early word count cushion allowed me to stay in the game and on track. A couple of plot developments have grown out of nothing which has been fun, and so far, I’m still enjoying the process. My local WriMo buddy and I went out to Caribou Coffee to do a little writing the other night, which was great, and made me feel like I was single and in college again, since my husband and i used to go study at coffee shops a lot before we were married.

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photo by celesteh

I am American and I live in France with my French husband and our three children. We are raising our children bilingually- they speak both French and English as native speakers. How do we do it? And why? Those are good questions.

I speak exclusively English with my children. Not only can I not imagine not speaking English with them, we also follow the one parent, one language theory of raising children in multilingual homes. I speak English to them, my husband speaks French. Our kids speak English to me and to each other, French to their father. Together, my husband and I speak both languages.

We read a lot of books in both languages. Every evening my kids choose their bedtime stories and we read the stories from our language. They also listen to kids CDs in both languages. On the other hand, they watch TV and DVDs almost exclusively in English. We get the BBC by satellite, so they watch English kids’ shows. I hate dubbed movies, so any movies they watch are in the original version, which is mostly English.

They attend lots of extra activities in English as well. Special reading readiness classes run by a local American Montessori teacher, or children’s groups through the local English-language association. I believe that it is important to put a lot of emphasis on the minority language (the non native language of the country in which we live) and this approach is working.

Why do I think it’s important to raise children bilingually? There are the obvious answers of increased job opportunities and awareness of other cultures. I think both these reasons are very valid and important. But beyond these reasons is the simple fact that I can’t imagine speaking to my kids in another language than the one that I was raised in, that I think in, that I dream and feel in. And my husband feels the same. Given that those are two different languages, well, our kids are growing up bilingual!

Merci, et bonne journée!

Kelly is a blogger, mom and graduate student. She lives in France with her three kids, four cats and handsome French frog of a husband. You can find her at Almost Frugal and Almost Frugal Food.

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Congratulations to our winner of the First Spanish Words giveaway!

Karen!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

In other language news, there was a funny translation mishap in Wales, Foreign Language Fun has some Spanish Thanksgiving activities, and Biligual Fun is giving away a CD along with some great tips on teaching your kids Spanish.

NaNoWriMo Update

Well, last weekend I started strongly, very strongly, and then, let’s just say it’s been good that I had such a large cushion because the last few days I’ve slacked a little. I’m still ahead of the game, but I need to press on if I want to stay that way for much longer. I’ve been really enjoying the process though. I experienced one scene where the words just seemed to flow out freely, almost supernaturally, and even just today, a new character and small subplot crept in out of nowhere.

I’m pressing on!

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