Communication

After a collective 5 and a half years of studying the Spanish language intensively, I thought myself prepared to arrive in a Spanish-speaking country and hit the ground running, linguistically speaking. Let’s be real, it’s harder than I thought. I have discovered that talking as expressively as possible will help my listeners wade through my sticky pronunciation and skewed diction. I figure that if this works, that pictures and diagrams might help further, and am considering carrying around a whiteboard.

I had my first full day of class today in which I tried to pay attention to 6 hours of rapidly spoken foreign language dealing with normal class material (Epistemology, Mexican Society and Culture, Sociology, and Anthropology of Europe). I found several things bothersome in this process. Firstly, it is much easier to daydream when being talked at in Spanish. On top of this, regardless of where my class is located, I have a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains out of any window. This is bothersome as, while I am daydreaming about mountains, important information concerning whether or not I need to run like hell from the class I am in is being doled out.

I have an experiment for you all. Open up a word document that you intend to read that contains some kind of information pertinent to your life. Now delete every tenth word, and replace every fifteenth word with a word you recognize but don’t know the meaning of. Good Luck. That is how long discourses have been received by me thus far. That being said, you know when that guy or that girl in that class with that professor who is that kind of particular about that thing is talking rather loudly while you’re trying so very hard to listen? That annoys me in English and infuriates me in Spanish. If only I knew how to tell someone to be quiet, please…

Similar to the document missing the words, try doing one with a word that is very similar to the original but means something completely different. Tonight I encountered such a situation. Juan Pablo, my Chilean Jimi Hendrix of a roommate (he plays lots of traditional Chilean guitar, as well as any classic rock song that’s ever been on the top 40, from memory, blows my mind) asked if I wanted to head out with him and another friend, Carlo, in 2 minutes. I said yes and asked what we were going to do. He said he didn’t know, and using one of the four english phrases he knows from songs, quipped “just go with the flow man.” I did, and was sitting in Carlo’s apartment with 3 or 4 other guys, still wondering what the plan was. So I asked again, in Spanish. “Carlo, what are we doing tonight huey?” He was one person away from me on a couch in a loud room, so when he answered I gathered this: “Vamos a un bar de chichas.” I had assumed that we were going to a bar and thought it strange that I was in the company of 6 dudes, so when Carlo stated the above which, literally translated, means “We’re going to a bar of tits.” It made sense. I was pissed, however, that I had gotten roped into going to a sketchy Mexican strip club when I have neglected to go in the US for the one year and ten months that I have been able to do so. I also hear that Mexican strip clubs are more or less brothels. Not to mention that I’m too stingy to even like the concept of strip club, but alas, I had an obligation to go as I am still proving my manhood to my new dogs and chose to take the diplomatic route instead of urinating on their property. We called a few taxis and as we were getting into them (I’m in a sour mood under the surface at this point), Jan, one of the German guys asked me in Spanish “So have you smoked Chicha before?” Chicha? Did he leave off the S? What is that? Surely he can’t be asking me if I’ve smoked tits before? So I asked him “Lo siento, una vez más?” This time, he answered me in english. “Have you ever smoked sheesha (hookah) before?” I laughed, said yes, exhaled, and went to the hookah bar.