REMEMBERING Cerati in English

As English Users, we all listen to music. But the fact is that we don't always listen to music in English.

However, that doesn't mean that songs in other languages don't offer the possibility of practicing English. They actually do.

A fun and creative activity to do with songs in other languages is to "transcreate" the lyrics to English.


In other words, to think about how the lyrics of a song would sound in English. In this case -because it's a song, it means taking into account the song's metric and rhyme structure so that the English lyrics would be "singable" in English.

It's a fun exercise. But not just any exercise.

------ A Comparative Language Exercise ------

So for this exercise, we chose to honor one of Argentina's cultural heroes, the late Argentine rock legend Gustavo Cerati, who leaves a legacy of beautiful songs and soundscapes, not just for Spanish speakers, but for the world. The song we chose is called Crimen (Crime), winner of multiple awards all over the Spanish-speaking music world and beyond, and one of the most successful in Cerati's solo career. 

THE EXERCISE involves watching the following modified version of the VIDEO for Cerati's "Crimen". Click on this LINK to watch: http://goo.gl/Ae9UrE (make sure you hit HD for better quality) and to discuss it as a group.

• Was there a better way to say it?
• Could you make changes and still keep the lyrics within the song's metric and rhyme structure?

Fair warning: if you're looking for a literary translation, you might be disappointed.

TRANSCREATION is a form a translation that takes a detour from the conventional word-for-word approach, but rather goes for meaning, context and style. Bottom line, what you say simply has to work in the language it's being transcreated to. If it sounds translated, it's not quite there yet. 

Interestingly, Cerati did his own of transcreation of the song "Bring on the Night" by The Police, called "Traeme la noche" and an amazing job he did! But transcreation is certainly not limited to music. 

In fact, translators of books, advertising campaigns and of course films must transcreate words so that they sound good in the language of destination. So if you've ever read a text or watched a film that was poorly translated, it was probably poorly transcreated.

SEQUENCING THE STORY: Coming back to Cerati's song and video, Cerati's "Crimen" tells a great detective story, but in a non-linear style. After watching the video, a good excercise is to create short sentences that put the story in order. This would require watching the video a few times and then comparing among students (if possible).  "Sequencing" is a great exercise to do for lower intermediate students, although you'd be surprised how much upper intermediate ones would benefit as well.

ON TO YOU: In conclusion, if you're an English User, use this material as an exercise in comparing two languages and enhancing your sense of why going from one language to another (any language) is never a word for word affair.

After that, CHOOSE A SONG in your native language, transcreate it to English, share and discuss the results with peers. 

As always, enjoy the journey!

Gracias Totales, Gustavo! Your beautiful music will always be with us.

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You can get this great track from Cerati's "Ahi Vamos" album
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ahi-vamos/id157363880

NOTE: The video was modified from the original to keep the story, but favor the comparison of lyrics in both languages. You may watch the original in FULL SCREEN here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLIs0j2WnlM

DISCLAIMER: For Educational Use Only. No copyright Infringement intended. All copyrights property of their respective owners.

DRIVING Through the City in English

As many English Users know, practical language learning is a journey that is best achieved in context. Well, this is language approach you'll find in HIT THE ROAD PAUL, a fun video-story course available for FREE to anyone with an internet connection.This course is designed for both students and teachers of English interested in learning or teaching authentic English in context.

The Story: English teacher StoryPaul only has 45 minutes to get to an office downtown and pick up a document. In each episode, we focus on a different topic related to travel and traffic. At the end, we find out if he makes it to his destination on time. Along the way, students have a chance to learn and practice idioms & speaking patterns related to each episode.

Episode 1 - In the Garage is about how to use the English language to talk about starting a car and getting out of a garage. See questions at the end.

UNDERSTANDING THE SCREENS

The Full Dashboard - Provides a space for key language elements like Questions and Target Language that the students can repeat by pausing the video.

This board includes Time Remaining and Distance Remaining which track how much time and how many kilometers Paul has until he reaches his destination.

VERB elements are usually in upper case letters for easy identification.

The Standard Dashboard - Contains no time and distance information, but still includes Target Language and Name of Episode.

Target Language - The language in each Dashboard is the target language of the lesson. They are modeled phrases and sentences that students can stop to repeat when watching the video a second time.



Additional Language - Language that is not essential or does not constitute a learning objective is often shown on a smaller lower third graph that appears on the left side of the screen.

While this is not the Target Language, students are just as welcome to learn it.

Photos and Pictures are sometimes added to illustrate key ideas. A Time Clock may also appear on this lower third screen.

RECOMMENDED WAY TO USE THE VIDEOS

(independently or as group / with a teacher or as self-study)

1. WATCH it once without stopping. Don't worry if you miss something.

2. ANSWER the General Questions.

3. WATCH again and Stop, carefully Read and Repeat the Target Language on each Dashboard.

4. ANSWER the Discussion Questions.

5. WATCH one more time without stopping.

6. As soon as you have a chance, tell a friend in English what the Episode is about. (Remember that Paul speaks in First Person; so a great exercise is to change his sentences to Third Person)

EPISODE 1 QUESTIONS & QUIZ

General Questions

1. Why is Paul going downtown? 

2. How much time does Paul have to get to the office downtown?

3. What's the first thing Paul does when he gets in the car?

4. How does Paul start the car?

5. What kind of car does Paul have?

6. Why does Paul look in his mirror when he is driving inside the garage?

7. What does Paul do when he gets out of his garage.

8. What do we call people who walk in the street?

Answer the same Questions in the Quiz below:

Discussion Questions

1. How do you travel around the city or town?

2. If you or some in your family drives, what kind of car is it (stick shift or manual)?

3. Do you like cars? Why or why not?

4. Do you live in a big city? If not, where do you live? Is there a lot of traffic?
5. Do you put on a seat belt when you travel in a car? Why or why not?
6. Do you lock the doors? Why or why not?

7. Do people in your country honk to tell pedestrians they're coming out of a building?
8. Do you think Paul will make it on time to the office?

There are more videos in the series, so be sure to check once in a while. Enjoy!

The True Nature of the English Language

Have you ever wondered why English grammar rules and vocabulary are so diverse and inconsistent compared to other more "pure" languages?

The English we know today has its origins over one thousand years ago as events in history would merge speakers of Old English (a more rudimentary language that evolved from Anglo-Frisian dialects of Germanic invaders to the British isles) with those of Old French (the more academic language that descended from spoken Latin in the Roman Empire).

Today, English is a modern language that is in a constant state of evolution as business, science and technology are most often communicated globally in English. Arguably, there are many social, economic and geopolitical factors that have made this the case.

But here's the linguistic one. It's the varied origins of English in the past that make it a language that is adept at adaptation, as it becomes the world's lingua franca. It's a language that today, at the dawn of the 21st century, continues to incorporate words and concepts of other Western languages and some Eastern ones as well.

Does this means that English threatens the continuity of other languages? Absolutely not. English is just a language that many will continue to learn as a second language because it helps to break down barriers to communication with the rest of the world, not just the English-speaking countries.

So if you study English, keep in mind that it is a very open and dynamic language. Not a closed and rigid one. This is why trying to learn English by merely studying its rules is often not as effective as taking a more natural and contextual approach to learning it.

The following video from the people at TED-ed tells us the story of the early evolution of English. To watch, make sure to TURN ON the captions if you want to read along. Enjoy!