Make Music your Teacher!

Making Music Your Teacher

Today’s screencast discusses how and why to use music as a Spanish teacher:

• Songs are short and easy to replay.
• Lyrics have a conversational style.
• The ease of repetition makes music great for learning pronunciation.
• Music is a great source of everyday vocabulary

As an example, we take the first verse of Tommy Torres’ Fin del capítulo from his CD, Tarde o Temprano.

Ya no llores mi niña.
  Don’t cry anymore my little girl.
Ya no más corazón.
  No more heart
Sé que duele tanto tanto
  I know it hurts so very much
Cuando en el alma muere una ilusión, muere una ilusión.
  When in the soul, a hope dies, a hope dies.

We can learn a number of things from these lines. The first two lines are really simple, the first line offering an example of the negative command form, which is actually the present subjunctive.

The third line contains an example of doler, a stem-changing verb, as well as the repeated adverb, tanto. When used as an adverb, tanto, like mucho, completo, and others, can be intensified through repetition. So, Sé que duele tanto tanto means “I know it hurts so very much” or “I know it hurts you so.”

In the last line, Cuando en el alma muere una ilusión…” we have an example of a “fickle friend,” amigo veleidoso — a word, ilusión that resembles the English “illusion,” but more often than not means “a hope” or “a thrill”:

no te hagas ilusiones– don’t build your hopes up
no me hago muchas ilusiones– I’m not very hopeful
su mayor ilusión es …– her dearest wish is …
Me hizo mucha ilusión — I was thrilled;
Le hace ilusión el viaje he’s looking forward to the trip;
¡Qué ilusión! Isn’t it wonderful!

Pocket Oxford Spanish Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press

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