Your Name: Mirna Desjardins
Language of Investigation Spanish
What places of origin (countries, regions, cities) is this language primarily spoken?
Spain, Latin America, and the USA
This closest/ most similar language to this language Italian and Portuguese
How many speakers are there globally of this language?400-500 million people
Alphabet
This language has a Latin (every sign has a single sound) alphabet.
This language reads left to right, up to down
The letters/ characters of this alphabet are of Indo-European language family
Does this language depend primarily on tone or pitch? Yes (Tone)
Is this language syllable or stress timed? syllable
Does this language have strong sound/symbol correspondence? (English does not) Yes
Complete this section ONLY if your language is Latin based (most languages you will
encounter are).
Phonetics and phonology
There are 5 vowels in this language. They are (cut and paste the vowels in the actual
script) a, e, i, o ,u.
Which vowels sound the same as English vowel sounds? (List L1 vowel and
English vowel correspondence).
“A” is pronounced similar to “a” in English such as father. “E” is pronounced similar to
“e” in English such as “met”. “I” is pronounced similar to “ee” in English such as “feet”.
“O” is pronounced similar to “oa” in English such as “boat”. “U” is pronouced similar to
“oo” in English such as “boot”.
Which vowel sounds do not exist in English? All the vowels sounds in Spanish
exist in English
There are 24 consonants in this language. They are (cut and paste the consonants of
the actual script) B C CH D F G H J K L LL M N Ñ P Q R S T V W X Y Z . Which
consonant sounds do NOT exist in English? Ñ - LL.
What sounds do speakers of this language have difficulty pronouncing?They elimiante
the "d" at the end of the word such as "sed", Puerto Ricans say "se". they eliminate the
"s" at the end of words. They change the "r" sound for the "l" sound. They also have
problems to pronounce "rr".
Are there any sound placements that are different between English and this language?
What are they? (For example, In the verb "eat" the first twol letters make one sound; a
Spanishl lspeaker will pronounce "eat" letter by letter.
Do any double letter combinations exist in this language? What are they and what do
they correspond to in English? (For example, Spanish: /ll/ = English /y/). Español = rr ,
English = r , Español = ch , Englsih = ch, Español = ll , English = y; Español = cc
Syntax and Grammar
How many tenses exist in this language?14
What are they?
1.PRESENTE INDICATIVO:.................................................. Yo compro
2. IMPERFECTO..................................................................... Yo compraba
3. PRETERITO ....................................................................... Yo compre (con acento)
4. FUTURO ........................................................................... Yo comprare (con
acento)
5. FUTURO CONDICIONAL .................................................. Yo compraria
6. PRESENTE DE SUBJUNTIVO ........................................... Compre
7. IMPERFECTO DE SUBJUNTIVO ...................................... Comprara o
comprase
8. PERFECTO DE INDICATIVO ............................................. He comprado
9. PLUSCUAMPERFECTO DE INDICATIVO ............................ Habit comprado
10. PRETERITO PERFECTOS ................................................ Hube comprado
11. FUTURO PERFECTOS .................................................... Habre comprado
12. CONDICIONAL PERFECTOS ........................................... Habria comprado
13. PERFECTOS DE SUBJUNTIVO ....................................... Hubiera comprado o
hubiese comprado
14.IMPERATIVO…………………………………………………… Compra, no compres,
compremos
The word order of this language is subject, verb, object (SVO)
What are the punctuation forms used in this language? List using English comparisons.
Question mark in Spanish = ¿…?
Question mark in English = …….?
Exclamation mark in Spanish = ¡ ….. ! Exclamation mark in English = …
!
How does this language mark gender? The use of the articles el, la, los, las, un, una,
unos, unas, and lo determine the gender.
Morphology
What are some shared cognates between English and this language? plaza, tornado,
rodeo, cafeteria, puma, armadillo, etc
What are some FALSE cognates between English and this language? assist (Spanish
"to attend" - English "to help" Pie (Spanish "foot" - English "type of pastry" - sin
(Spanish "without" - English "wrongdoing"
Through your research what have you found are the biggest difficulties of
speakers of this language learning English? Please provide specific
examples.
Based on my research and my own personal experience as an English Language
Learner, I would say that the biggest difficulties in learning English are based on
grammar, phonetics and morphology, and vocabulary.
The grammar rules in Spanish have some variations with the English grammar rules.
For instance, in Spanish the proper order to describe a noun is the noun followed by the
adjective. When Spanish ELLs encounter this difference, they get confused and think
that they are reading from right to left. Another grammar difference is the use of
auxiliaries in English, whereas Spanish does not use them.
Another difficulty Spanish ELLs have to face is the fact that English and Spanish
language share false cognates leading students to more challenging situations to
acquire English vocabulary.
Finally, phonetics and phonology are key factors in the process of learning English as a
second language. For instance, in English the consonants and vowels have more
variations than the ones in Spanish. This matter influences greatly when Spanish
speakers are learning how to read and pronounce words in English. For instance, the
word “bat” is pronounced by a Spanish speaker the same way is written as the ELL will
sound out “bat” letter by letter; however, the word “leash” will not be pronounced as
written.
If you have an early production ELL who this language is their L1, what would be
the most important thing you will teach them in regards to the difference between
their language and English?
I would teach Spanish ELLs how the sounds in English differ from the ones in Spanish.
Once students are familiar to the English letter sounds, they will be able to start
sounding out words and reading them. Hence, ELLs will become more efficient and
knowledgeable to increase their vocabulary.