Mundo Verde - Check their Spanish

[Anonymous]

The English is jargony, and hence difficult to translate. I was curious about other schools after one of the PPs said something, so I looked at Janney's web page...impeccable as far as I can see.

[Anonymous]

MV Parent here. Not a native speaker, but close to fluent Spanish. MV is generally doing a great job teaching children in Spanish. The errors in translation and such seem to arise when something is written in English and then translated into Spanish by a native Spanish speaker who is not a professional translator. Terms of art get garbled. Translation is a hard business, much harder than just speaking and communicating in a language.

When I was attending open houses at Lamb, MV, Stokes and DCB last year before choosing MV, I noticed and was irritated by mistakes at all of those school. Stokes teachers in the PK spoke terrible Spanish in my opinion (and generally the admins did not speak Spanish). DCB and LAMB admin communicated in "Peace Corp" Spanish, but teachers seemed very good. MV's teachers (some of whom are not "from" Spanish speaking countries) actually seemed to speak the best Spanish.

At MV I find the biggest problem is the wide variety of "correct" options in Spanish. Animals and foods have different names, Usd v. vosotros, lot of other differences. A lot of words used in Puerto Rico and Central America are just English words that are "Spanish-ized". I really appreciate that the MV teachers generally avoid that, but you do encounter it in after care. But, it is also good that my kid are learning that there might be different words for something that are also correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MV Parent here. Not a native speaker, but close to fluent Spanish. MV is generally doing a great job teaching children in Spanish. The errors in translation and such seem to arise when something is written in English and then translated into Spanish by a native Spanish speaker who is not a professional translator. Terms of art get garbled. Translation is a hard business, much harder than just speaking and communicating in a language.

When I was attending open houses at Lamb, MV, Stokes and DCB last year before choosing MV, I noticed and was irritated by mistakes at all of those school. Stokes teachers in the PK spoke terrible Spanish in my opinion (and generally the admins did not speak Spanish). DCB and LAMB admin communicated in "Peace Corp" Spanish, but teachers seemed very good. MV's teachers (some of whom are not "from" Spanish speaking countries) actually seemed to speak the best Spanish.

At MV I find the biggest problem is the wide variety of "correct" options in Spanish. Animals and foods have different names, Usd v. vosotros, lot of other differences. A lot of words used in Puerto Rico and Central America are just English words that are "Spanish-ized". I really appreciate that the MV teachers generally avoid that, but you do encounter it in after care. But, it is also good that my kid are learning that there might be different words for something that are also correct.

Well said.

Can we put this thread to rest?

[Anonymous]

Don't see why we should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MV Parent here. Not a native speaker, but close to fluent Spanish. MV is generally doing a great job teaching children in Spanish. The errors in translation and such seem to arise when something is written in English and then translated into Spanish by a native Spanish speaker who is not a professional translator. Terms of art get garbled. Translation is a hard business, much harder than just speaking and communicating in a language.

When I was attending open houses at Lamb, MV, Stokes and DCB last year before choosing MV, I noticed and was irritated by mistakes at all of those school. Stokes teachers in the PK spoke terrible Spanish in my opinion (and generally the admins did not speak Spanish). DCB and LAMB admin communicated in "Peace Corp" Spanish, but teachers seemed very good. MV's teachers (some of whom are not "from" Spanish speaking countries) actually seemed to speak the best Spanish.

At MV I find the biggest problem is the wide variety of "correct" options in Spanish. Animals and foods have different names, Usd v. vosotros, lot of other differences. A lot of words used in Puerto Rico and Central America are just English words that are "Spanish-ized". I really appreciate that the MV teachers generally avoid that, but you do encounter it in after care. But, it is also good that my kid are learning that there might be different words for something that are also correct.

Also a MV parent that is not a native speaker but family members are and we have discussed this issue, as well as with friends at other schools such as Oyster. There are many native Spanish speaking parents that continue their efforts at MV to address this issue in terms of translation and communication materials. So I agree that this is an issue, but is not unique to MV. I am not familiar with LAMB but maybe MV can look to them for guidance. However, I know from friends at Oyster that grammar/translation of communication materials is also an issue there, but the parents believe this doesn't reflect what is happening in the classroom. Remember, admin staff and volunteer parents are translating materials and it seems like the problem is trying to translate directly word for word. This is not an issue in the classroom as the materials used in the Spanish classrooms, e.g., books, workbooks, curriculum material are not translated from English but purchased directly from Spanish education vendors or materials originally written in Spanish by the teachers. My child's teacher is a native Spanish speaker and regularly corrects my child's Spanish similar to the English teacher in terms of what is grade appropriate. My issue is similar to the PP poster regarding the wide variety of acceptable vocabulary in Spanish. I learned Spanish primarily from Colombian native speakers and sometimes when I try to help with homework or reading a Spanish language book (from a major vendor) I come across vocabulary that I am unfamiliar with. However, I remember from my advanced Spanish class in college that was taught by a professor from Spain that this issue is universal, well at least from his perspective. My instructor from Spain didn't have nice things to say about my Colombian instructors' Spanish!

[Anonymous]

My son attends Bruce Monroe, which is a dual language school. He is in PK 3. I speak and read Spanish reasonably well. His Dad is a native Spanish speaker. I have never noticed errors in school communications - neither in English nor Spanish. All the teachers I know at the school are native speakers - Spanish if they teach in Spanish and English if they teach in English.

I'm just mentioning this because early on someone said this issue is most likely problematic at all bilingual schools. I have not noticed it at Bruce Monroe, which is not an "in demand" school. I have applied to MV both years and don't have a prayer with my lottery number, but this thread makes me wonder about MV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son attends Bruce Monroe, which is a dual language school. He is in PK 3. I speak and read Spanish reasonably well. His Dad is a native Spanish speaker. I have never noticed errors in school communications - neither in English nor Spanish. All the teachers I know at the school are native speakers - Spanish if they teach in Spanish and English if they teach in English.

I'm just mentioning this because early on someone said this issue is most likely problematic at all bilingual schools. I have not noticed it at Bruce Monroe, which is not an "in demand" school. I have applied to MV both years and don't have a prayer with my lottery number, but this thread makes me wonder about MV.

We are at Powell with a high WL number for MV. This thread is helping me make my decision of staying put.

[Anonymous]

The Powell website seemed to have more trouble with the English than the Spanish if I remember correctly. Maybe it was just the bios. I have yet to see a perfect school website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MV Parent here. Not a native speaker, but close to fluent Spanish. MV is generally doing a great job teaching children in Spanish. The errors in translation and such seem to arise when something is written in English and then translated into Spanish by a native Spanish speaker who is not a professional translator. Terms of art get garbled. Translation is a hard business, much harder than just speaking and communicating in a language.

When I was attending open houses at Lamb, MV, Stokes and DCB last year before choosing MV, I noticed and was irritated by mistakes at all of those school. Stokes teachers in the PK spoke terrible Spanish in my opinion (and generally the admins did not speak Spanish). DCB and LAMB admin communicated in "Peace Corp" Spanish, but teachers seemed very good. MV's teachers (some of whom are not "from" Spanish speaking countries) actually seemed to speak the best Spanish.

At MV I find the biggest problem is the wide variety of "correct" options in Spanish. Animals and foods have different names, Usd v. vosotros, lot of other differences. A lot of words used in Puerto Rico and Central America are just English words that are "Spanish-ized". I really appreciate that the MV teachers generally avoid that, but you do encounter it in after care. But, it is also good that my kid are learning that there might be different words for something that are also correct.

I call BS. You were visiting and comparing all of these these schools last year before "choosing" MV??? Doubtful. You got lucky and got into MV and now it is the best, blah, blah, blah.

[Anonymous]

18:07-we chose MV and know we were fortunate to have the choice.

Translation of materials (as opposed to interpretation of verbal communications) is a professional level endeavor-there are degree programs in this stuff. So meh translations are not uncommon when institutions are translating large amounts of material and using volunteers.

So, not a biggie in my view since they can't afford to have all their materials professionally translated. And I'm grateful to those volunteers who are doing their best in translating and its good enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son attends Bruce Monroe, which is a dual language school. He is in PK 3. I speak and read Spanish reasonably well. His Dad is a native Spanish speaker. I have never noticed errors in school communications - neither in English nor Spanish. All the teachers I know at the school are native speakers - Spanish if they teach in Spanish and English if they teach in English.

I'm just mentioning this because early on someone said this issue is most likely problematic at all bilingual schools. I have not noticed it at Bruce Monroe, which is not an "in demand" school. I have applied to MV both years and don't have a prayer with my lottery number, but this thread makes me wonder about MV.

Agreed - it makes me wonder about all charter bilingual schools. I would never sent my kid to a supposedly bilingual immersion program taught by non-native speakers!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son attends Bruce Monroe, which is a dual language school. He is in PK 3. I speak and read Spanish reasonably well. His Dad is a native Spanish speaker. I have never noticed errors in school communications - neither in English nor Spanish. All the teachers I know at the school are native speakers - Spanish if they teach in Spanish and English if they teach in English.

I'm just mentioning this because early on someone said this issue is most likely problematic at all bilingual schools. I have not noticed it at Bruce Monroe, which is not an "in demand" school. I have applied to MV both years and don't have a prayer with my lottery number, but this thread makes me wonder about MV.

Agreed - it makes me wonder about all charter bilingual schools. I would never sent my kid to a supposedly bilingual immersion program taught by non-native speakers!!

Apparently in DC it's hard to find good teachers who are native Spanish speakers. At our EOTP dual language public elementary (Bancroft) several of the Spanish teachers aren't native speakers. Some of them are excellent teachers, but I know my kid isn't hearing a perfect accent. We are really happy with other aspects of the school, though, so it's not a deal breaker for us.

I don't think think the Anglo kids are going to be fluent by the time they graduate elementary, anyway. They will need to spend a summer or semester abroad when they're older to really get it down. I think it's no different for a Japanese or German kid learning English at school--you can have the best teachers in the world but unless you are totally immersed in the language it's difficult to become truly fluent.

[Anonymous]

Although there are a few non-native Spanish teachers at Mundo Verde, they are actually quite rare. In the past three years, my child has had 7 teachers/teacher assistants in Spanish immersion. Of those 1 was a non-native speaker, and that was in the class with three teachers.

[Anonymous]

This is a poor translation. Period.

Anonymous wrote:I was the poster who first raised the issue of the postcard we received. I noted I didn't think it was necessarily incorrect (although it does have errors), but just strange. I think the issue - even looking at their webpage now - is that they are attempting to directly translate, word for word, instead of translating MEANING. There are more natural and idiomatic ways of translating things into Spanish.

A concrete example, from their Sustainability page:

ENGLISH: " These national sustainability standards were developed with input from kindergarten through twelfth grade sustainability experts in public, private and teacher education fields."

THEIR SPANISH: "Estas normas nacionales de sostenibilidad fueron desarrolladas con aportaciones de Kindergarten hasta el doceavo grado expertos en sostenibilidad en los campos de educación pública, privada y maestros del mismo campo."

Here, for example, "expertos" should lead, because that's the grammatical order in Spanish. Instead they were trying to directly follow the English text, rather than ensuring the quality of the Spanish translation.

For my part, I don't think this is some massive problem that absolutely is a barrier for us. Yes, errors happen; we are all human! That said, its a concern and I want to check this out as we make our final decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Que hora es?

¿Qué hora es?