Cuningham – Fake Flamenco

7 Tips to Keep Your Second Language Alive

No extra money for language classes or international travel? (My hand is raised) Let’s talk. So we’ve spent a year, five years or ten+ learning a second language. How can we avoid our vocabulary falling away like so many shooting stars? See my top seven ideas for low budget refreshers. The ideas go from free-of-charge […]

Spanish Culture and Language

Chilean Poetry

What is it about Chile that produces such world class writers? Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda won Nobel Prizes for literature; the first in 1945 and the second in 1971. Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American to win the prize. Is it Chile’s varied landscape, from desert to glaciers, from mountains to […]

Poetry Path

I began writing poems when I was in elementary school. After the funeral of my great grandmother when I was 9, I wrote: Ashes to ashes dust to dust. Die we don’t want to but die we must. As a high school senior, I was fortunate to study with an English teacher who required we […]

travel

Sidewalk Traffic

My dad is an old-fashioned kind of guy. He was taught to remain on the street-side of the sidewalk during a stroll to protect females from any stagecoach mud. Just kidding about the stagecoach. When we walk together, he often switches to the left or to the right of me as we turn corners to […]

travel

Guatemalan Fabric

Two of my favorite travelers are in Guatemala this week. Their visit to the northernmost Spanish-speaking country in Central America reminded me of a poem I wrote on the plane home from my time in Antigua. Guatemala I flew into the unknown, to a volcanic land where an agrarian people weave cotton cloth in bright […]

Spanish

¡Bienvenidos! Welcome!

Supergringa in Spain: A Travel Memoir Hi, this is Supergringa. Don’t travel with a mountain of suitcases like I did (7!). Grab your fake flamenco, a pair of Levi’s and hit the road! What’s Fake Flamenco? Don’t leave home without it! Need real flamenco? ¡Olé! Carmen de las Cuevas Granada