Circulo De Obediencia Canina

The Dog Obedience Circle

I saw my Grandma this weekend. She trains dogs and translates Spanish in her spare time. When she was younger she lived in Mexico (my Grandfather worked there). Speaking little Spanish and wanting to meet people she socialised the way she knew best — she joined the Circulo De Obediencia Canina (The Dog Obedience Circle), where dog owners discussed all things dog. ‘At first, in the meeting’, she told me, ‘they all spoke English, as I was there; but as they got more excited they moved into Spanish. By the end of the evening I was thinking in Spanish!’

Finding a subject to study in Spanish has been a key part of my learning; Spanish has to be a vehicle for an interest. For my Grandma, dogs were her interest and Spanish was a vehicle for talking about them. I love football and I have learnt quite a bit of vocabulary about it. When I was away in Barcelona I talked to people about football and the fact I was speaking Spanish was secondary. There are lots of positives to focussing on one small subject when learning a language.

• It keeps you interested and you stay motivated.
• You have a manageable amount of vocab to learn, rather than learning the whole of Spanish.
• It’ll be useful when you do know it, because you’ll want to talk about it.
• It lets you set a tangible goal — ‘I will talk to someone in Spanish about football’, was mine.

My Grandma also brought me some books to try out. One is a collection of short stories, with the Spanish on the left page and the English on the right. The other is ‘The Best Of Young Spanish Language Novelists’. My Grandma tells me that reading aloud will help develop my pronunciation. I’ll write up how I get along with them, and whether I learn anything by using them.