Anyone who teaches and/or advocates the vosotros is a friend of mine. I did it for all five years of my teaching tenure, and didn't regret it.

And Eddie, I remember many a night staying up making 20 tortillas de patatas for ALL my classes. My house smelled like olive oil for a month (not that I was complaining!).

Kurt, I too have left the corporate world, I was an insurance adjuster for 10 years, and have just completed my credential program to be an elementary school teacher...I couldn't find a more invaluable career out there and can't wait to get started!!! Good luck with your student teaching...

I am also teaching about my favorite topic...Espan~a! I teach in a middle school/high school in NYC. ALthough the kids are not too enthusiastic about grammar, they love the culture. I also have made many a tortilla de patata...and flan...for my clases. My Intensive Spanish class, for Sophomores is now working on a project on various cultural topcics related to Spain. I am so looking forward to what their reaction will be...as they learn about how wonderful and fun Spain really is!

I've had many battles with students and parents over teaching the vosotros. My final response is always "Forgive me for expecting your child to learn something new." How hard is it to learn one more conjugation?

Eddie, consider me a fellow marginal!
I taught Spanish at a Community College in the evenings for a year and half. I probably learned more than the students, actually. for me spanish has always been instinctive, I go by what "sounds right," having learned to speak it in colombia as a child.

I struggled with answering "why" things are said the way they are, while rationally knowing that there is no strict logic to language; and that almost every rule offers almost as many exceptions. Then (after the class was over), I realized that the "why" does not matter unless in advanced [graduate level] language class where you are studying the nuance of the language, and why certain words & tenses are used - but the "how." Essentially how do you express yourself in a particular situation/culture/language, in the best way to be heard or understood by the listener.

[This message has been edited by Nicole (edited 02-07-2001).]

Porque así es. Because that's the way it is. That's why we read books, not just for their subjective content, for a taste of the author's usage of a language as he/she dips a brush and paints us a word picture of what he or she sees. We encounter information or amusement or perhaps even passion (as in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca). In any case, I think Castilian is a richer, warmer language for self expression. ¿Where, for example, could we find the equal of: Ojala?

as far as ojala-
Doesn't it have it's roots in Arabic, Allah?

It does. As well as the water "agua" form what some Spaniards told me. I always have to smile to myself when Spanish purists worry so much about the language being screwed up by other linguistic or culural influences. The Spanish we hear in Spain today is such a mixture of all of the elements on that chunk of land for the last few thousand years. Of course, for one that loves the language and the current culture, there is always a moment of hesitation that makes you want to preserve what you know, and I am always a little disapointed to see the elements of American pop culture gaining ground in places where I prefer the "original" culture. But then, you can't control that sort of thing, and those very trends created the sspain we love today, maybe we will love it even more tomorrow.

There are a lot of words with arabics roots. It's the second source of vocabulary after Latin I think. I think that words like azúcar, arroz,... and almost of the words begining by "al" like alfombra, alcachofa, alcázar, aljibe....have arabic roots. Anyway, I think it was quite different then, as arabs were living here for almost 700 years and brought a lot of new things and had a much more developed culture. It has been a big influence in Spanish culture.
I'm not against anything I consider a good influence from other culture. But I think it's a petty to take words from other language just because you don't know enough your own language or just because of fancy. It's incredible how easy is in English to make a new word like for example homeless, it's so precis, and it's easier for the press to get it from English or to translate it directly instead of looking for a similar Spanish word like vagabundo or any other as homeless are not something new.
I'm talking too much, just one more thing. I think the worry about it, it's that a good thing of Spanish is that it is spoken in a lot of countries with different cultures and the introduction of new words make them to change the idiom in a different way, and it's something we don't want to happen.

I wish all Spanish classes had to teach vosotros, I agree with whoever said "How hard is it to learn another tense?" Not nearly as hard as suddenly being immersed in people saying "soís" and "venid" and taking months for me to be able to do the same!