[Pc_Support] [OT] ¿Español para los tecnólogos?

[Bryan J. Smith]

I was going to bring this up in person at the LEAP meeting
tomorrow night, but since it is likely I will not make it or
be late due to work, I will bring it up on the list.

- Gaining Opportunity

As a central Florida resident, I've always felt the closet
reality that I am hindered by lack of speaking/writing
Español.  3 years of formal Español grammar has netting me
nothing, because I do not expose myself to it enough only to
wish I could find some way in my profession.  Especially now
since there are a lot of opportunities, for both myself
locally, as well as for my current employer in Latin and
South America.  Which is why I'm writing this e-mail.

The most direct use of Español by myself will be in two
forms:  Technical conversation and, given time, technical
writing.  First and foremost, I need to have a means to
convey technical information and engage in technical
exchange, even if at a rudimentary, broken and almost "hack"
way to start.  Eventually I believe I can take that level and
extend it to proper grammar and prose, both in speech and
writing over time, since I do remember much of my formal
(albeit almost useless from a practical standpoint)
education.

- Getting Geeky With It

Which brings me to this e-mail.  Depending on how many
technologists (not necessarily Linux or a specific product)
we have at LEAP who speak Español fluently, I would like to
start an informal clique.  This clique would be people who
would want to exchange e-mail off-list (no mailing lists
necessary, we're talking only a few people), and possibly
meet informally on occassion (maybe once a month).  Key to
this clique would be a number of willing, Español speaking
technologists who would share a few hours a month with us in
e-mail, possibly in person.

By e-mail, I mean taking the time to discuss current
technology in Español almost at an annoying pace for them, to
those of us who have had only formal, non-practical exposure
to the language in the past.  In person, and probably more of
an incentive to overcome that annoyance, I would like those
of us "peer, English-only speaking technologists" to take our
"peer, Español speaking technologists" to dinner or other
social events were the "learners" would fund the event.

- Is this a stupid idea and/or not feasible?

These are just some ideas on how we could get this rolling,
even if it's just a few "peer technologists" and "peer
learners" who only meet occassionally.  I don't know if this
would work, let alone if we have enough Español speaking
peers in our group who would be interested, but I figured I
have to ask.  Because from my point, it's probably the only
way I'm going to get some practical Español under my belt. 
And I believe this way will have the best, most direct
impact, professionally for myself, my employer, my clients
(or prospective clients), etc...

I apologize for the off-topic post in this matter, but I
don't want to continue as an English speaking-only
technologist in a country that is clearly one of two
languages now.  To do so is to only limit my opportunties
(regardless of any ideological aspects), and that's all that
matters to me.  It is my sincerest hope that through trial'n
error of such approaches, I can find both a fun and directly
professionally applicable way to learning Español.

Besides, in the worst case, I'm only out a few bucks bribing
people to dinner to geek speak for a few hours.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)