You might be a mental horny

The fad right now in my school is a book of English translations to Spanish colloquial expressions. It's been making the rounds in the teacher's lounge during recess, and my coworkers have been studying up.

The problem, and it's a big one, is that -- you know what? I'll just go ahead and show you:

The problem is that they are completely, totally wrong. After a few of them tried some of these on me (I looked at them blankly), I demanded to see the book. And you know what I found? The book is meant to be a joke. But the introduction and the title of the book, which make it clear that it's supposed to be funny and not serious, is in English.

So they can't read the disclaimer, essentially, and they think it's a dictionary. And they're walking around saying things like "shut up, polliwog!" and "he's an inksucker" with straight faces.

I told them it was a joke, but I don't think they really believed me. They keep saying these things, and I keep trying and failing to maintain some level of personal dignity because I'm laughing too hard.

Who knows? Maybe all my laughing means that I'm really just a mental horny.

How to learn a language without pulling your hair out

Lots of questions I get from this blog relate to language learning and fluency. Now I know there are people way more qualified than I am to answer question on language learning methods and advanced software programs and all that jazz, but I'll let you know what I did and then we'll call it a day.  My experience, of course, is with Spanish but the following can apply to French or Russian or whatever you like.  Only not Tagalog. Or Azerbaijani. 

First, I'd highly recommend the free podcast Notes in Spanish (can be found here).  I found when we came to Spain that we had paper knowledge of Spanish but totally lacked conversation skills and the ability to listen to native speakers, so these podcasts helped a ton.  

Second, check out Meetup.com and see if there are any Spanish language meetups in your area.  In Phoenix, the levels ranged from native speakers to total beginners, and it was a friendly and supportive learning environment, as well as being a fun place to meet new friends. As an added bonus if you are very lucky, you will occasionally get to learn inappropriate pick-up lines in other languages.

Third, check out the "Practice Makes Perfect" series of workbooks – you can find them fairly cheap on Amazon, and they provide good structure and exercises to remember all the past perfect subjunctive thingamajigs that sadly actually matter when you're learning a new language. Also, you get to translate sentences like "I belong on the A-list" (see Figure A above).

Fourth, try to find some children's books in Spanish at your local library and read through them with a dictionary.  Basic vocabulary, basic grammar. If you are like me, you will be shamed and humiliated that a 3-year-old can speak circles around you - it's motivating and good practice for the ego hits you'll be taking once you start speaking to native speakers. 

Fifth, have a blast.  It's really fun, gets your brain moving, and opens up new worlds. And if you have a language buddy, you can speak code in your new foreign language when you don't want other to eavesdrop.

Sixth, don't be afraid.  I'll repeat it: don't be afraid.  Embarrassment and perfectionism don't have a place in language learning, so leave them at the door. Be loose, and know that you're going to make mistakes, hundreds and thousands of them, and that you'll laugh at yourself and keep going. You'll get better. Everybody does.

Merece la pena

My head is so full of Spanish that it feels like it's going to start leaking out my ears.

This weekend The Mister and I met with Rosa and Mauricio for tapas (bull tail meatballs, anyone?)  We also hung out with Pilar and Juan to grab a beer and eat peanuts and popcorn at their favorite American bar.  Then, we celebrated Salva's birthday into the wee hours with a whole raucous crowd of Spaniards (see photo above, shamelessly stolen from Beatriz).

The only English I spoke was to The Mister and occasionally it admittedly came out rather Spanglish-y. Like, "hey, that was a little fuerte, tío."  I am pretty sure that my English skills are cratering in direct proportion to the improvement of my Spanish skills.

Living at the intersection of two languages can be fertile ground for confusion.  My phone's spell check is in Spanish, so occasionally I send my mother texts that read "Haga (supposed to be: haha). Dang my spell checo is in Spanish" (actual text sent today, 16:22  - oh yes, remember 24-hour time?).  I dream in Spanish and in English, and sometimes I dream that all I can speak is a crazy unintelligible mix of the two and nobody can understand me no matter how well I pronounce things.  Then I stop dream-talking and just start eating extra spicy buffalo wings drenched in ranch dressing (hey, it's my dream).

The good news is that each day Spanish gets a little easier to speak, the words come to me a little bit faster, the grammar mistakes a little less egregious.  I once felt that listening to a native Andalucían tell a story was like being drenched all over in water and then asked to separate the drops from each other - that's how impossible it felt to identify each individual word out of the rapid-fire syllables.  But now they make sense mostly, and when they don't I actually know how to identify the unfamiliar part and ask what it is.

It feels like a milagro.

An anti-recipe, for your consideration

Cinnamon = Canela

Cumin = Comina

That becomes relevant really fast when you have cinnamon sugar toast that is actually cumin sugar toast.

It was unpleasant, we'll leave it at that.

I speak both English AND Normal

Today one of the little boys in my class of five-year olds looked up at me.  "How many English teachers do you have?" he asked.

"Well, I don't have any. My parents taught me English."

He looked at me, perplexed.

"How did they learn?"

"Because my family speaks English, just like yours speaks Spanish."

"Oh, Seño" he laughed, sure I was jesting with him, "my family doesn't know how to speak anything.  We just speak NORMAL!"

The sequel: I regret to inform you that Gwyneth won in the end

Yeah, yeah, you win, you're awesome, okay, whatever.

I believe I have already documented my love/hate relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow and the annoying/awesome fact that she speaks practically perfect Castilian Spanish. Before you read this post, you should probably read that one first, seeing as this is basically the sequel.

Here's what went down:

Two weeks ago. We had been in Spain about four hours.  Stumbled off the plane, dragged suitcases in the rain to our hostel, looked around wildly for something to eat.  A kind but rather mangy-looking Brit that we found in our hostel took us a few blocks down the street and pointed to a restaurant.

There, he said.  There, you will find good food and cheap beer. (We were on board).

So we sat down, ordered chicken, because chicken is possibly the most universal food, and when you have just recently tumbled out of a plane you are not in the mood for experiments. The waiter smiled at us condescendingly, because we were breaking code by eating dinner at 7, and only non-Spaniards would be so lame as to eat dinner before 9.

So he brought out the chicken, and we lifted our tired heads to begin eating.  We cut open our chicken pieces - beautifully grilled golden brown chicken - and looked inside.

Raw.

Totally, completely raw.

Raw like sashimi.

And in my tired, hazy, jet-lagged stupor, I summoned up the Spanish words that I knew exactly how to say because I had heard Gwyneth say it, right on those dang "Spain: On the Road Again" episodes.  Resigned, I summoned the waiter.

"Es tan crudo," I lamented.  It's very raw.

So in the end, after a year and a half of more or less intensely studying Spanish, the first Spanish sentence of any real significance that I uttered in my new home country was taught to me by that dratted Gwyneth Paltrow, to whom I apparently owe my well-cooked chicken, after the waiter, who understood me perfectly, threw it back on the grill.

And that, my friends, is how Gwyneth and karma won in the end.

It appears that we will not have to move into a cardboard box

Ole! I think - emphasis on think - that we found a place!  It's a teensy little studio, but it is inexpensive and happens to be about 50 yards away from the sparkling Mediterranean Sea.

Sí, we said, we shall take it!

Only we said that in Spanish, so the possibility for some grave misunderstanding is high.

Honestly, my Spanish is entirely inadequate for this task.  I know enough to make myself understood, but any question unleashes flowing rivers of Spanish from the other side of the phone that drown me in beautiful meaningless syllables.

But we've managed fairly well despite the odds and I think I know about twenty five more Spanish words than I did yesterday, which is certainly progress!

Next step: learning to navigate the bus system.

A Movie (Non)Recommendation

I totally know you are itching to see this movie. I do. I DO!

Hello, world.

The word of last week was sick.  Sick sick sick.  I sounded like a donkey with laryngitis for about a week (a week!).  Much better now though, and it bought me a lot of reading time on the couch.

This week the word would have to be aprender - Spanish for learn.  We were doing so much studying before the LSAT took over our lives, but have really dropped the ball since then. Whoops!  (Oh, and who saw the World Cup final? ARRIBA ESPANA!).

Last night we started watching the Spanish movie Sol y Viento for about the 96th time.  It's one of those low-budget learning films that has accompanying vocabulary lists and hints on new phrases and stuff.  It's so cheesetastic I almost can't even see straight, and The Mister and I have incorporated as many of the Veleveeta-thick moments into our daily routine as possible.  "Un torbellino, Don Jaime!" is not a particularly meaningful phrase, but it gets points around the G-ski casa for style when thrown randomly into a conversation.

un torbellino!

Prepare yourself

This blog has a limited life span in its current form. 

In a few weeks it has a makover coming, and then it appears to be turning back into a travel blog.

Okay?

100% true story

The Mister and I have been working hard on our Spanish. Both of us have always wanted to speak another language, and we currently nurture dreams for the not-too-distant future that include spending lots of time in Spain. Anyway, so we're at the point in our learning where what we really need are live conversations, mainly to help us improve our confidence.

So we found a few Spanish meetup groups on meetup.com (by the way, meetup.com is a little like the public library; awesome resource that not enough people use. We are in two Spanish meetups and a photography group and they have thousands of groups on all different themes: cooking, scrapbooking, reading, football, stay-at-home bilingual moms, and so on. In the internet age, there's truly no excuse for being bored or not having any place to meet new friends. So go on, and go forth).

So last night was our first night at this particular Spanish learning group. We timidly gave our competency level at beginner/intermediate, which turned out to be a mistake, as we're probably more like intermediate/advanced for this particular group. I don't feel braggy saying that, because I know that everyone here knows the feeling of fitting into a smaller size jeans that they thought they were, and this was exactly like that, so you all understand.

So we ended up doing a lot of worksheets, which we were a little bored with, to be honest, until we recieved a new list of phrases to translate.

You're very nice.

You're great.

At this point I'm thinking: "Oh, how nice! We're learning to be friendly."

You're very attractive.

I'm interested in you.

I like you very much.

"Well, that's a bit forward."

Do you like me too?

Can I kiss you?

Will you take me home?

"Hang on..."

Do you want to come inside for awhile?

Is this a local or national custom?

At this point, if you think The Mister and I weren't nearly purple from holding in our belly laughs, then you don't know The Mister and I very well. I was trying so hard to avoid eye contact with him, because I knew I would lose it completely if I did. My whole body was shuddering from the effort.

I'm not used to this.

I don't mind watching but I'd rather not join in.

I'll try it.

The Mister leans over: "Are we on candid camera?"
And, finally:

I'm sorry. It's against my religion.

And with that, we lost it.