Discusses an easily-learned pair of mnemonic devices that have universal applicability for the position of object pronouns in Spanish sentences. (Author/VWL)

Examines how 11 reference sources cover Hispanic Americans and their achievements, describing what publishers of reference titles can do in the future to serve the research community with more accurate, comprehensive tools. Only one source covers all 20 Hispanic American groups. The other sources supplement each other, though there is room for…

Discusses the usefulness to second language learning of an activity in which students assume a pen name and write letters under that name in the language studied in order to motivate their interest in the language and accelerate their mastery of it. (CK)

Examines the use of clitic pronouns by incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking 4- and 5-year-old children with and without language impairments (SLI). Participants included 10 children with specific language impairment and 10 children with typical language development. Children with SLI used clitic pronouns less frequently than their age-matched…

Presents a rapid memory game that allows students of Spanish to distinguish promptly between the uses of the prepositions "por" and "para." Explains the game and various accompanying activities. (AS)

Focuses on the relevance of principles of information organization in adult second language acquisition. Looks at typological features of information structure that allow speakers to organize and shape the flow of information when carrying out complex tasks and pinpoints factors that lead to the selection of linguistic form. The nature of the…

Investigated bilingual 6- to 10-year-olds' reasoning about the stability of human psychological characteristics in relation to the obligatory distinction between the Spanish verb forms "ser" and "estar" and the corresponding English form "to be." Found that children treated "ser" and "to be" as…

The meaning of Hispanic words often varies from country to country. To assist business travelers in Spain and Latin America, a lexicon is provided that details the various office-supply terms used in a variety of Spanish-speaking countries. The lexicon is based on interviews with over 200 Hispanic informants. (JL)

Describes the use of the Contemporary Music Approach to learning Spanish in which classroom experience along with the findings of research on left-brain and right-brain learning are used to help students learn and remember the fundamentals of Spanish grammar and reduce their inhibitions. (six references) (GLR)

Describes the University of Maryland at Baltimore County's one-week foreign language exploratory program for fourth through sixth grade students, and details methods and strategies used to conduct "Spanish Day," where students learned about Spanish language and culture through songs, games, and stories. (CB)

Describes the use of conversational partnerships (CP) in high school Spanish classes. CPs seek to improve spoken proficiency by allowing students to rehearse conversational roles, plan strategies, and polish pronunciation. (CB)

Proposes an analysis of Spanish Neg-transportation that is not restricted to any particular set of verbs and can in fact be applied to wherever its structural description is met. The proposed method also explains why the complement of some negated matrix verbs can be expressed in either the indicative or the subjunctive. (CB)

Reexamines the issue of Spanish nonverbal word stress, illustrates two basic generalizations about primary word stress, develops the conclusion that penultimate stress is unmarked, examines the relationship between Latin stress and its Spanish descendant, and contrasts the stress systems of Latin and Spanish. (32 references) (GLR)

Presents examples of how children acquire language through the principles-and-parameters model, a highly modular system in which different theories interact so that only permissible sequences arise, and highlights research on Spanish syntax and semantics. (136 references) (CB)

Explores problems encountered during attempts to translate French expressions occurring in English (such as concierge) into Spanish, particularly when the English interpretation of the expression is different from the standard French usage. Spanish translations are provided for about 200 French terms and expressions commonly used in English. (61…