Hadar Shemesh's daughter got a worksheet listing dozens of specific clothing words in her Spanish class. Shemesh argues beginners waste time on hyper-specific terms like "short shirt" and "long shirt" when they should focus on core words that actually let them communicate.
My daughter, who doesn't speak Spanish, she started taking classes for learners of Spanish as a second language, and then she would get these papers, worksheets, with like 100 drawings of different clothing items, and each of them has a different freaking name that I don't even know. Not in English and not in my first language, not in Hebrew. I do not know these words. I just call everything a shirt and everything pants. That's it. No, but on this page you had all these different names and all these different options and versions of names for this type of shirt and that type of shirt, and if it's short and if it's long and if it's button-down. And listen, I don't disrespect it. I think native speakers use all these words seamlessly, but my daughter, who cannot even express how she feels She doesn't need to know all of these options because there are more important things for her to learn. So the priority of what it is that they teach you in school is sometimes really strange, honestly, from experience also as a Spanish learner and seeing what is taught in English apps or vocabulary apps or online or on Instagram, right? I'm like, why do people need to know all these words if they still struggle with more basic words?
Read Out Loud with me! Dare to Lead by Brené Brown | Pronunciation & Vocabulary practice
