Don't study Spanish at Southern Nazarene University!

[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com/]

That's right. You read it here. Don't study Spanish at Southern Nazarene University! Studying Spanish will ruin your ability to read with an uncritical eye. For instance, this morning I was reading an online New York Times article about Mexican corridos in Los Angeles (http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/travel/16corridos.html?ref=global-home). At the bottom of the first page was a short corrido with an accompanying translation and I had a hard time getting past the Spanish errors (such as "vez" instead of "ves" and "cayo" instead of "callo"). That's sad because I need to be able to overlook what some would call minor errors and go on to enjoy the rest of the article. Nevertheless, I get stuck on the errors and hear in my mind the accusation, "Surely the New York Times can afford to pay a bilingual proofreader who can catch things like that!"

In our Spanish related majors (Spanish, Spanish-English Translation, International Studies, Latino Ministry/Latino Studies) at SNU we concentrate on producing excellent writers in Spanish who die a thousand deaths when they let grammar errors slip into their writings. (O.K., maybe that's an exaggeration; however, we do concentrate on producing highly competent writers who avoid silly errors like "vez" instead of "ves" and "cayo" instead of "callo".) So, I'm warning you, if you want to be able to speak, read and write Spanish without noticing errors, don't study Spanish at SNU.

P.S. Don't let my ranting keep you from reading the article (follow the link above). It is a good article about "narcocorridos" in some sectors of the Los Angeles Latino community.