Spanish Native from Madrid, living in Ireland for 18 years. Conversational classes, improve your pronunciation to get a better 2-way communication, understanding and add those to your language skill

Find out more about Diana

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I do speak Spanish because I am originally from Spain, it is my first language and I feel privileged as it is one of the top-speaking languages in the world.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  Pau Gasol NBA basketball player is one of my most favourite emblematic representatives of the Spanish language, despite Catalan being his first language, he expresses himself in all his social media in Spanish and English, and he has an extended audience not only within the sports realm but also culturally within his own foundation to eradicate childhood obesity. He is one of the best representatives of the multi-language cultural Spain.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behaviour in the language that you particularly like?

  "La sobremesa" this is a time after you have got your lunch mostly on weekends where you drink your coffee and you keep chatting with the family or guests and it can be extended till dinner time. This time is where most of the gossip or family stories are being told and discussed by the people sitting around the table and it's a way to narrow the links between the members of the family and the guests.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  It is my native language, I think, eat, dream and live in Spanish. The same sentence can change its meaning only with the intonation that you give it to it, without even changing the order of the words and also a sentence can mean the same no matter the order of the words, this is the magic of the Spanish.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  The main barrier I find among my students is pronunciation, as Spanish you read it as you write it, but it is difficult for another person that has to grow up speaking a different language as the tongue grows in certain ways and it is complicated to re-train it to another language. That is why in my classes I teach how to position your tongue to maximise the correct pronunciation.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  The Spanish language has many irregular verbs and as a child or new learner you make a lot of mistakes, for example the verb to learn "saber" normally you say "yo se"- I know but instinctively you start saying "yo sabo" which is very cute when you hear it. Even my multilingual kids do the same mistake.

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  Living in Ireland has made me realise the richness of my own language, when I need to translate something it is sometimes complicated as there is not such a good direct translation and I need to explain first the history or origin of the word to my students for them to fully understand the meaning of an expression or a complex word.

• What makes you a Superprof in language?

  I do teach Spanish and English and as I mentioned above I like to introduce anecdotes, stories and history related to the words or topics I am teaching in my lessons to engage my students and make the classes more entertained and they can associate the story to remember the word or expression better.
  
  I do also teach the correct position of the tongue within the mouth movements to learn from the beginning how to pronounce the sounds correctly and be better understood by the listener.