Hi - my name’s Aran, and you hear my voice speaking the English in the lessons. I wrote the framework for the course, and Gaby and Pilar (whom I hope you’ll see in here introducing themselves soon!) did the hard work of translating the necessary bits into Spanish…
I’m the co-founder of SaySomethingin.com, which started life as a Welsh course (for which my fellow co-founder Iestyn ap Dafydd did the southern version) - we launched originally in 2009, a couple of days before my first child was born - not very clever timing, in hindsight!
I started work on our first Spanish course in 2010 - it’s been through at least 4 iterations to reach where it is now, and I’m excited that we’re now going to be pressing on to produce Level 2 in the very near future.
I’m looking forward very much to getting to know our Spanish learners as well as we already know many of our Welsh learners, and to helping you as much as possible on your journey to becoming Spanish speakers…
Hello, my name is Justin and I now live on the border of France and Italy where I am able to practice speaking French and Italian. Recently I decided to add Spanish which has led me to your site which I am really enjoying. I find that for actually SPEAKING a language SSi is the most effective site that I have b een able to find. CONGRATULATIONS. Here’s hoping that you expand the number of sessions as rapidly as I can absorb them.
My wife is a native Welsh speaker from North Wales and so I have started to learn Welsh on SSiW and my plan is to surprise her at Christmas with hopefully my new found ability to communicate in Welsh. I can receive the Welsh TV channel S4C here so I am hoping that at some point I will be able to tune in and enjoy watching Welsh TV.
My wife Eirwen really wants to find a site to help her speak Italian. She would like to know if you have any plans to teach Italian because she is noticing how enthusiastic I am about learning to speak Spanish on SSi.
Hi Justin! Welcome to the forum!
Really good to hear that you’re enjoying the Spanish course, and following the Welsh course as well!
From what I gather, level 2 of the Spanish course is being published as we speak, so will make an appearance here in the not too distant future.
I am also pleased to hear that you are able to receive S4C in your part of Europe too. A little while ago, I compiled a list of methods and channel numbers for how you can receive Welsh TV and radio from outside of Wales, and asked if any of our members from outside the UK could contribute by telling us if they can receive these services where they are and how they are receiving them, if different from the UK. This list can be found by clicking here! Feel free to add any useful information for where you are and what services you can get there!
Hope you enjoy the rest of the courses, and do not hesitate to ask any of us anything that may help you with your learning.
Hi Justin, and thank you so much for your kind words
We’re hard at work at the moment on an algorithm which we’re hoping will make it possible for us to produce new materials far more quickly - and once we get it working, Italian will be very high up our list of new languages, so fingers crossed we’ll have something by next spring
In other news, we’ve started recording for Level 2 Spanish, so it shouldn’t be all that long until we have a lot of new material ready for publishing there…
My wife Eirwen is from Llanfairtalhaian in North Wales. She has two sisters living in Abergele, one of which is married to an Italian (Gino). If you need help in creating your Italian course, I could ask Gino to network within his Italian contacts if you should need native Italian speakers at any point.
I will really be looking forward to seeing your successive Spanish courses. I have an Internet contact in Madrid whom I want to impress with my hoped for new conversational prowess.
This leads me to another point. My friend in Madrid is a native Castillian speaker who has an avid interest in learning English. She spends hours and hours slogging away at correspondence courses and has an impressive vocabulary and knowledge of odd English expressions. However, her spoken English is stilted and awkward. At her stage in life she cannot ditch her family responsibilities and travel and immerse herself in the U.K. or U.S. and graduate toward speaking a more natural English.
Have you thought of producing an English course for Spanish speaking natives. There is an immense demand out there in the Spanish world (including South America and the U.S.) to speak English well.
Anyway, I hope you expand in this direction. There is a lot of fancy software out there, but my bet is that yours is the most effective of them all in helping people become converstionally proficient.
Although it’s pretty old course material, which we’ve developed a very long way since then - we’re hoping to be re-releasing a much more up-to-date version early-ish next year, but the ones that are there at the moment might be interesting for your friend (and I think they’re all free to access, just need a registration, if I remember correctly)…
I’ll remember you have some Italian contacts! We have a few already, but extra recording options are always handy
And diolch yn fawr iawn once again for your very kind and supportive words
Hi Aran
We are 10 miles from the Spanish border, going in tomorow armed with 10 of your spanish lessons and a 21 day ticklist. Spanish radio is on in the background as we speak…I’ll let you know how we get on…
Looking forward to becoming fluent!!
Peter
We are in a campsite in Roses,northern Spain, staying in a motorhome.
The first snatch of conversation with a friendly gardener went well, we discussed the lluvia, after a fashion!
Then I tried a few Spanish words on the charming receptionist. Curiously, she managed to clock my nationality and replied in, if not the Queen’s English, certainly the English of a minor royal.
Thinking quickly, I hit her with,‘Your English is perfect…pero,…estoy tratando de aprender espagnol.’ To which she replied 'But we are in Catalunya and we speak Catalan, not Spanish…
It was never going to be straightforward…
I’ve had similar problems longing to use my Spanish in Basque Country…
Might be worth you building up a pre-prepared ‘Your English is perfect, but I’d be very grateful if you’d be kind enough to let me practice my Spanish, even though sadly I don’t yet know any Catalan’…
