¡Goooooooooool!

I love shouting "¡Golazo, golazo, golazooooo! every time a player scores and "¡seeee laaaa perdioooooooooó!" when they miss just like the Spanish-speaking announcers during a football match.

Obviously I am not talking about American football, but rather soccer, as it is called in the United States. I definitely prefer the term football (or fútbol), especially since that's what everyone else in the world calls it, but I digress...

Did you hear about Leonel Angel Coira of Argentina? He is a 7-year-old soccer prodigy that has just been signed to a youth league sponsored by Real Madrid. If you need an American football analogy, I guess that would be like the Colts recruiting a first-grader in hopes that he would be the next Peyton Manning. You can read or watch the ESPN sports coverage about little Leo on the ESPN website.

While we're one the subject of adorable kids playing soccer, I would like to share the short documentary film, L'equipe Petit, featuring a group of tiny football players from Barcelona with decidedly less talent than Leonel Angel Coira. If the title does not look Spanish, that's because it is in Catalán, which is another language that is spoken in and around Barcelona, Spain. You will hear both languages in the film but there are English subtitles. Warning: this film may induce cuteness overload!

 

If you can't view youtube, you can watch it on vimeo here.

Somos todos americanos

It seems that we never have enough time in class to talk about all the cool places in the world where Spanish is spoken. Click here for a fun little quiz to see how much you already know about South America.  Feel free to do any research on your own about some of the places mentioned and leave a comment about something interesting you find out.

By the way, did you know that in Spanish speaking countries they go by a 6-continent model of the world? That's because they consider North America and South America to be one continent. (If you don't believe me, click here.) That means you're better off using the term "estadounidense" rather than "americano" or"americana" when you want to express your nationality in Spanish. In fact, it can seem presumptuous and even offensive for U.S. citizens to use the term "americano" as if they are the only people on the continent!