Radio Canada International Experiments with Time-Shifting: Ends Up in the Past

Radio Canada International (RCI) Broadcasts in Shortwave around the world. They produce superb daily programming in English, French, Spanish, and other languages. They have a well deserved world-wide following.

They also broadcast online. Their programs used to be available for download in mp3 format. It was great to download a weekend review of the news in Spanish and listen to it while exercising or driving or sitting in the shade. The new world of online broadcasting was wonderful.

Then one dark and stormy night RCI reported they had some copyright issues. Changes were in the wind. What would be their response? What would some of broadcasting's brightest minds come up with? How would they lead us through to a new age of media dissemination?

The media savvy use and interact using a half-dozen delivery modes, often in one day. Millions make their own 'casts of one sort or many. These new Sociocasters insist on choices. If the choice isn't there they'll go elsewhere or more than likely they'll create a new format to get what they want. For millions this is not the future, this is the current base-line.

In the context of these trends, RCI reviewed their copyright issues and came up with a brilliant set of recommendations. They came up with a truly lateral conclusion. They stopped making broadcasts available for download. The exact title of the report was something like, An Off-White Paper on Copyright Solutions by I. Mann Ostrich, LLB.

Now if a quick check of the archives reveals broadcasts only up until 2006.

Listeners want more choices not fewer. They find it irksome when a public broadcasters tell them that the only legal way to use their services is to chain themselves to computer workstation. They don't need infinite choices. So...how about two choices? One of them portable.

Take your heads out of the sand RCI. You can figure out a better solution. Put those heads together where they belong.

Tip 3. Everyday Spanish Every Day

4 Tips on Learning Spanish Every Day.

Often we would like to speak Spanish but there is nobody readily available to talk to. We can take opportunities to speak Spanish aloud to ourselves while doing our daily tasks.

Today's Tip:

Tip 3. Huevos Rancheros lll: Today I am going to make eggs.

Make your To Do list in Spanish.

As you write down items on your list, talk to yourself about each item. Use tenses and structures according to your current level of Spanish.

When you start planning your outing, you are looking to the future. Use phrases like I am going to buy apples...; I should try a new variety.

As you are doing a task, talk about that with the present and present continuing tenses: I am looking at apples; he is stealing grapes.

As you check off items, pull out your tenses that apply to past activities: While I was looking at apples, a guy was arrested for eating grapes.

Tip 2. Learning Spanish by Talking to Yourself

4 Tips on Learning Spanish Every Day.

Often we would like to speak Spanish but there is nobody readily available to talk to. We can take opportunities to speak Spanish aloud to ourselves while doing our daily tasks.

Today's tip:

Tip 2. Huevos Rancheros ll: Where is my egg shampoo?

Talk to yourself in Spanish while you're in front of the bathroom mirror or in the shower.

After my first year of university in Canada, I tried learning Spanish in Mexico City and lived in a pension just down the street from the Canadian Embassy a.k.a. my mail drop. One of the teachers suggested I might try taping labels in the bathroom to reinforce my tiny vocabulary while I talked to myself about brushing things. I taped labels in the bathroom and while I was on a roll, I taped notes to everything else in my quarters.

I was happy with this technique until I arrived home from class one afternoon and heard a lot of giggling in my room. I went in and found one of the housekeepers giving a guided tour of my labels to a few of her coworkers. This is a bed, and here is a chair and over there is a floor, yes a floor...giggle, giggle giggle...you get the picture. To this day I have mixed feelings about the labels but I still use the the talking-to- myself-aloud part.

Learning Spanish Talking to Your TV

Amerigo's Mexican Treasure

Here's a technique I learned from a friend in Mexico city. Her English was excellent, perhaps at an advanced-intermediate to lower-advanced level. She had never taken an English course, never been abroad and didn't have any family or friends who spoke English.

How did she do it?

She watched American soap operas every day. She watched them actively. While the show played she repeated every word out loud as quickly as the characters spoke. At first she could only chime in and repeat the occasional word and just hummed the rest, but after awhile she could repeat almost everything that was said a fraction of a second after it was said.

Of course she understood almost nothing at the beginning, but that's not the point; she kept repeating what she heard. Her aural discrimination, her ability to hear subtle differences among sounds, got better and better. The key to this technique is that in order to repeat what you hear you first have to focus like a laser on the speaker. Your mind cannot drift. When your ear is well-trained your comprehension will improve as will your speaking ability.

How Should I Do it?

First the technique part:
To practice the technique, first try it on an English news broadcast, a movie or even a willing friend who will keep up a stream of speech for you to repeat. When you are comfortable with the technique, use it in learning Spanish.

Now add the Spanish part:
I suggest beginning with a Spanish-language news broadcast. Learning Spanish with news broadcasts offers four major benefits: there is only one speaker; we can see the speaker's mouth and facial expressions; we hear broadcast-quality Spanish which is clearly-articulated and less colloquial; and we are familiar with the characters and stories in the news.

After a few weeks you'll notice a significant difference in what you are able to hear.

Tip 1. Chores are Fun in Spanish

4 Tips on Learning Spanish Every Day.

Often we would like to speak Spanish but there is nobody readily available to talk to. We can take opportunities to speak Spanish aloud to ourselves while doing our daily tasks.

Today's tip:

Tip 1. Pick at least one daily activity and use Spanish every time you do it.

Over time I have applied this to cooking, playing my trumpet, driving, biking, washing the car, doing yardwork and housework. It takes your mind off scrubbing the floor although it would take a milagro verdadero to make it fun.

Make sure you concentrate on just one activity and keep it up for at least a few weeks. This will get you accustomed to the vocabulary and phrases associated with this task. In turn you will begin to think in Spanish, at least for this activity.

This accomplishment will give you great confidence to move on and expand your Spanish to horizontes nuevos.