Another spanish for nursing question

[northmississippi]

I was thinking that it will important to learn spanish, but older people like myself who rarely ever meet anyone who speaks spanish will find it difficult to learn and retain.

I was thinking I could learn just a few phrases that pertain to nursing, like "time for medication", "are you in pain", etc,,but who knows if i could understand their response.. so... that got me to looking at the google translator that seems to work pretty well,, has anyone ever used a translation book or software to get away with communication without calling in translators?

[ikarus01]

I was thinking that it will important to learn spanish, but older people like myself who rarely ever meet anyone who speaks spanish will find it difficult to learn and retain.

Believe me, you're never too old to learn a language. My mom managed to learn english in her late 50's and if you're a spanish speaker, learning english is not easy, specially when you're older, since pronouncing sounds like "th", "z" "ch" and the english "r" doesn't come easy at all!!!

However, I think what is really important is to take a class that emphasizes speaking and not just writing and grammar. I think that's the main problem in the USA. You take a language class and 2 years later, you can't barely express yourself. However, you take a language class in other countries, and within a year, you can communicate, but that's because the main approach concentrates on communicating and not writing or just learning grammar rules.

Nonetheless, with the internet, nowadays it is easy to actually learn a language and retain it. You can join many sites where you can find language partners and you can communicate through skype or even you can watch youtube channels in spanish.

But just wanted to say that you're never too old to learn a language and the thing about spanish, is that unlike french, people aren't snobby about how you pronounce it, as long as you get your meaning across!

[Clovery]

When I was in nursing school, I used google translate to ask yes or no questions for my assessment in Spanish. I took Spanish in high school but only two years, and I didn't retain much. But I do know how to pronounce words I read and can recognize many nouns and the roots of many verbs, however conjugating them into the proper tense is beyond me. Googling the phrase, reading it to the patient and getting a yes or no worked out pretty well. When my patient wanted to tell me something I tried using the translator phone, but I couldn't understand the heavily accented translator. To make matters worse, when I did finally understand what the translator was saying, I realized the patient was very confused, possibly with dementia, and what he was saying made little sense anyway.

[amberella123]

I would LOVE to be a medical translator. But I still have so far to go to even get my nursing. Hopefully I will be able to take a Spanish medical term class or some such.

[Valerie99]

Using an electronic translator can sometimes suffice but because a machine cannot understand context, it can also go horribly wrong.

For example:

Type "She is hot" into Google translator. The result is "Ella es caliente." However, this means "she is h*rny." (Sorry if it seems crude. It's just the reality.) You want to say "Ella tiene calor."

I used to speak a bit of Spanish at work and use Google translate when I needed more help but I found that I often couldn't free up my hands to start playing around with a device. I decided to just enroll in private lessons and it helped me a lot. I used Language Bird Private Spanish Lessons Online - Home and I would bring my specific scenarios from the week to role play with my teacher. After some time I became much more confident and have been able to show more compassion for the patients. My Spanish is far from perfect, but I think the patients really appreciate my efforts as well.

You might explore various learning paths until you find one that fits you. Even if your learning is just slow and steady, over time it adds up.

Hope that helps!

[duskyjewel]

Rio Salado community college here in Phoenix has a two class series on Spanish for health care workers. I took 3.5 years of Spanish in high school/college and still remember a fair bit, but I never learned much that would help medically and I've forgotten a lot. It's all online and would be easy to do around work, so I'm thinking about doing it.

I have also used Google translate, and it is very useful. I told my co-workers that we already have the Universal Translator from Star Trek.

Here are three resources that I utilize to enhance my Spanish skills (only 1 year of formal instruction... many, many years of self-teaching):

1) News in Slow Spanish... fantastic site for developing your ear for Spanish and developing a full vocabulary and grammar by reading and hearing contemporary news stories at a pace the gringo ear can discern. Includes a weekly grammar lesson and a weekly lesson on sayings and idioms.

It's a pay-site but worth every dollar for someone serious about their study of the language.

Available as a smart-phone app as well as full access to the website resources.

2) BBC Mundo... it's the BBC news written in Spanish. They used to have audio programming but it was discontinued due to budget cuts.

You can read the same story in English on the BBC World News site and then read it again on the BBC Mundo.

3) Dr. Molly Martin's "Medical Spanish Podcast." Again, not free (still don't understand the mentality that everything is supposed to be free) but (again) well worth the money for anyone serious about communicating with patients in Spanish.

It includes grammar lessons and thematic medical-Spanish lessons.

+++

I can't imagine that Google translator is fast enough to have any meaningful interaction with patients.

[Havin' A Party!, ASN, RN]

Not intending to be a downer by any means... but two things from my experience with this:

Learning a second language is difficult, confusing, tough, time-consuming, and requires consistent dedicated effort over time.

And... unless you'll have the opportunity to practice / apply what you've learned, you'll lose your know-how speedily.

Just keepin' it real people... BTDT!

My best to all.

[marcbladebreaker]

My wife is a fluent Spanish instructor.