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4 Names for “Teacher” in Spanish

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This week I’ll be going into my third week in Spanish classrooms, but even in that short amount of time I’ve picked up on the words the kiddos use to get the attention of me or the teacher I’m helping. No Name by Patrick Spence on Flickr 1) profe Pronounced “PROE-fay” [ˈpɾo.fe], this is a shortening of the Spanish word profesor  or profesora , which looks like our word “professor” but means both university professor and teacher in any grade. 2) seño Pronounced “SAY-nyoe” [ˈse.ɲo], this is a shortening of the Spanish words  señorita  (“Miss”) or señora  (“Mrs.”). Two syllables are always easier to say than three or four! 3) maestro Pronounced “mah-AYS-troe” [maˈes.tɾo], this word (and the accompanying female form maestra ) means “teacher,” plain and simple. 4) teacher In Spain, they learn British English in schools, so they pronounce the word “teacher” as “TEE-chuh” [ˈti.tʃə]. Sometimes they do attempt the American pronunciation, but it comes out more like “TEE-chah
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Is St. James Really Buried in Santiago de Compostela, Spain?

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As you head down a curve of the busy San Pedro street, you catch your first view of the twin bell towers of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela—and you catch your breath. Petite hatchbacks rattle across the cobblestone as your feet seem drawn farther down the path, although that might just be gravity pulling you downhill toward the old zone. You cinch up your backpack’s sternum strap for the final approach of this multiple-night pilgrimage. For not the first time on your Camino, you lose your sense of direction as you enter Santiago’s old town: granite flagstones at your feet, stone-and-graying-plaster houses on either side, and overcast skies above disorient you—yet your eyes eventually lock on to a spray-painted yellow arrow on the side of a building. Once you’re back on autopilot, you start to reflect on why you started this crazy, 70-mile-plus hike in the first place. Rúa de San Pedro, Santiago de Compostela Maybe you hiked from Sarria farther inland as a cheap and hea
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5 Ways to Speak Spanish Like a Spaniard

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If you’re like me, you’ve probably learned Spanish as it’s spoken throughout Latin America. Now, I know there is no one single standard Latin American accent, but  there are a few things I’ve noticed when listening to Spaniards speak that distinguish them from Spanish speakers in, for example, Nicaragua or Argentina. Since living here for the greater part of a year, I’ve both consciously resisted and unconsciously picked up on many features of the typical Spanish accent. After thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided there are around five characteristics that most distinguish the Spanish of Spain from the Spanish of the Americas. These five sounds, when spoken in the Castilian way, will bring you much closer to sounding native. Streets of the village of Cazorla 1) Pronounce C before E & I and Z like TH In the Americas you’ll hear the words ciudad  (“city”), cereza  (“cherry”), and zorro  (“fox”) pronounced as “see-oo-DAHD” [sjuˈðað], “say-RAY-sah” [seˈɾe.sa], and “SOE-r
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