Monday, June 16, 2008

Reading motivation: Harry Potter y la cámara secreta

Near the end of the year, Adam's teacher had started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the class, but was unable to finish it. Adam asked if I could read it aloud at home. I gladly said yes and we finished it a couple of days ago.

Now we're reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but this time around, I'm reading for my own practice the Spanish version - Harry Potter y la cámara secreta. So far, I'm really enjoying it! (Yes, I actually haven't read any of the books and I've only seen the first movie. *gasp*)

So, before I read a chapter aloud in English to them, I first read it in Spanish. Today I read three chapters! I even read some aloud to practice my pronunciation. (I highly recommend doing this on a daily basis - even if it's for 10 minutes.) As for my motivation, it comes from the boys. "Mom, have you read the chapters? When can you read to us? Aren't you finished yet?" Too funny...

4 comments:

Josh said...

That's great! I loved the Harry Potter series (although I haven't read them in Spanish). I waited for a long time to start reading them because I didn't want to be a part of the Harry Potter craze that was going on, but once I started I was hooked!

Karen said...

Well, I tell you it's been great fun so far. I'm finally reading something in Spanish on a more regular basis. Now I need to work on the conversational Spanish. I had some practice today leading bilingual storytime at the library, but I need more.

Sarah @ Baby Bilingual said...

Hola Karen,

Your ideas are fantastic! I'm planning on stealing some to use when teaching French to rugrats. I'm glad you started this blog and hope you'll continue with it.

I too have been trying to work on my non-native second language (French) since resigning from my teaching job a year ago. Reading the HP books in French was such fun, because Rowling uses so many inventive words to describe objects and activities in the wizarding world--I loved seeing how the translator rendered things like "butterbeer."

I really should do the podcast thing. Though I don't have an ipod, it can't be that hard to just play them on the computer. I'll start looking for sites that provide them in French!

Would you be willing to let me do a profile of your family on my blog? I really like to share ideas from other parents who are using two languages with their kids, especially when one is a non-native language. You can click on "profiles" in the sidebar of my blog, Bringing up Baby Bilingual, to see some examples of previous profiles. If you're interested, please email me at babybilingual (at) gmail (dot) com.

Other readers of Karen's blog, I extend the same invitation to you!

Karen said...

Thanks Sarah! I sent you an email. :)