¿Estamos ready? Spanglish in Puerto Rico

Learning Spanish in Puerto Rico can be a very interesting experience. First of all because a lot of people insist on speaking English to foreigners – regardless of whether the foreigners are English-speaking or not (happened to my blond but very Spanish brother-in-law C who doesn’t speak English*) and regardless of their own level of English (the Puerto Rican accent in English is not always easy to understand) and secondly because the Puerto Rican Spanish is full of Anglicisms, or maybe rather Americanisms!

Spot the Spanglish at the car wash!

When it comes to the first issue, I just consequently say ¿Perdón? when somebody talks to me in English, and if they insist on English, I show my stubbornness by replying in Spanish… It happened to me twice on Monday; first a taxi driver came up to me on the way to Starbucks and said something which I didn’t actually hear, and he didn’t change language after my ¿Perdón? but continued by asking ”Why not take a taxi instead of walking” – I replied “Voy solamente a Starbucks, no está lejos…” (I am only going to Starbucks, it is not far). When I arrived to the café, the girl behind the counter spoke to me in English but did actually change to Spanish when I said ¿Perdón? Sometimes I feel like Don Quijote fighting against wind mills – why do I even bother? Well, maybe because I insist on practising my Spanish…

Anyway, I am used to this kind of bilingual conversations from Belgium where every now and then people would detect my foreign accent in French and try to speak to me in English! However, I was also aware of the fact that there are Belgians who prefer speaking English (most Flemish-speaking Belgians for example) and the same is the case in Puerto Rico. I just figured out a few weeks ago that one of the shop assistants in a local shop is probably an English-speaking American woman so maybe I should just stop insisting on speaking Spanish to her.

More Spanglish…

I get an enormous sense of well-being and am happy for the rest of the day** when people speak to me in Spanish and don’t switch languages It happens more and more, which my Spanish teacher told me is a good indication that my Spanish has improved! Nevertheless, speaking Spanish in Spain is much more rewarding and less stressful, since the Spaniards, at least in Zaragoza, don’t have the same reflex to speak English to foreigners. Of course, this is probably because there are a lot fewer tourists in Aragón than in my area of San Juan…

The Spanglish is another matter: I find the Puerto Rican habit of using English words in Spanish, or making English words into Spanish  fascinating and creative, while O thinks it is shocking the way the Puerto Ricans mistreat his and their mother tongue! Of course I can understand that it is quite tragic how perfectly adequate Spanish words are being replaced by Spanglish ones, but I also believe that it is the way languages have evolved since the beginning of times…

• fresa is sometimes called strawberi, and arándano rojo agrio is simply cranberi (maybe not surprising since cranberry is not a locally grown berry in Spain nor in Puerto Rico)
• picotear (to snack) is replaced by snackear - oh yes, I saw it on a billboard this weekend, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to take a photo! 
• Sorry is used almost as much as perdón 
• Hangear (to hang out) and chatear (to chat) are common verbs 
• El beauty (as in beauty parlour) and el blower (which I already mentioned yesterday is called le brushing in French, i.e blow-drying your hair and getting it styled at the hairdresser’s) are popular words in Puerto Rico
• Suéter is a wonderfully phonetic word for “sweater” in Puerto Rico, just like the Spanish spell whisky güisqui and pronunce their word for sweater [xer'sei] (actually jersey)
• ¿Estamos ready? was heard during the Beach cleaning event a few weeks ago! (Are we ready?)

When I once asked among a group of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans how to say “coaster”, it caused a big discussion… The Puerto Ricans looked at each other and said “¿coaster?”. We had to call O from the kitchen (where he was cooking, while I was entertaining the guests) to get the “proper” Spanish word - ”portavaso“ but then the Mexicans said ”posavaso“! Does the coaster carry / bear the glass or is the glass put on the coaster? According to Wordreference the Mexicans were right, so maybe we can’t trust O’s expertise in Spanish?

And before we judge the Puerto Ricans, or Spaniards for that matter (I mean [xer'sei]??), remember that Swedes have made French words into Swedish ones with a more local spelling: bureau is “byrå”, portefeuille is “portfölj” and fauteuil is “fåtölj”, and the French say le week-end  and spell the word with a hyphen that doesn’t exist in English. When I visited Bosnia in 2001, I saw a menu with cizburger and cikenburger. The list goes on and on…

Spanglish is one thing but there is no excuse for misspelt signs in Spanish, such as this one that we saw in more than one Marshalls shop – kitchen is cocina in Spanish! That the sign continues in English is another matter…

*) The situation was really absurd as he then thought that the Puerto Rican talking to him in English didn’t speak Spanish, so he made an attempt to communicate in broken English…
**) Anyone out there recognising that quote??

Nationality? Citizenship? Ethnic group?

Yesterday, just before boarding the plane to Newark, there was an improvised passport control which was quite surprising since you are not passing any borders between Puerto Rico and the United States. The control actually confused a few Puerto Rican passengers who didn’t know how to answer when asked by the immigration officers:

- ¿Ciudadanía? (citizenship)

After a few seconds of confusion, they answered hesitantly ¿Americana? and then corrected themselves and said ¡Estadounidense!”

Flags at the San Cristobal Fortress in San Juan - a Spanish Naval flag (the so-called Burgundy Cross), the Puerto Rican flag and the flag of the United States

I found the whole exchange very interesting for two reasons:

1) Quite a few Puerto Ricans see themselves as puertorriqueño even though officially there is no such citizenship*. Puerto Ricans are American citizens and carry American passports (for good or for bad, I don’t want to get into a political discussion here)… which leads to the second reason:

2) In Spanish you make a distinction between “americano / a” and “estadounidense”, which is actually the most correct way to express yourself since everybody who lives in America – North, South and Central - is American! Only citizens of the United States of America are “estadounidenses”.

Is there any other language that makes this distinction or could it be that because Spanish is spoken in South America, there’s been a need to create a distinction between Americans from the USA and the rest of the two continents?

The American / United States flag

I assume that most of us wouldn’t have any trouble with knowing what our nationality is, nor our citizenship, which usually is the same. However, some people have dual citizenships (two passports, sometimes even more!). Do they make the distinction between nationality and citizenship? Instinctively I would say that even if I became for example a Spanish or American citizen, I would still feel that my nationality is Swedish.

The definitions of the two terms, according to Dictionary.com, are as follows:

Citizenship – the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.

Nationality – the status of belonging to a particular nation, whether by birth or naturalization: the nationality of an immigrant.

No mention of emotions or feeling a nationality of course, but would you agree with me that nationality is more emotional than citizenship? And did you know that since the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, there is an European citizenship? You might not feel European (I do, though) but if you are a citizen of a member state of the European Union, you are automatically an European citizen as well. So, in a way you could say that all Europeans have dual citizenship!

Street sign in New Jersey – apparently Spanish-speaking persons don’t drive cars, only ride bikes or skateboards!? (since the “No parking when road is snow covered” isn’t translated)

Another confusion arose the other day when O was filling out a form for a work project and the box ”Ethnic / racial group” had to be checked. He asked me, “Am I ”hispanic / latino” or “white / caucasian” as a Spaniard? Well, I understand that for him the instinct would be to check “Hispanic” but I think that he is expected to refer to himself as “white”. Hispanic or latino for O refers to the fact that he is a Spaniard (from the Iberian (Hispania) peninsula) speaking a Latin language. I googled it and according to the Wikipedia entry (link above), various government agencies in the United States define “hispanic” differently – sometimes including people from Spain and Portugal, sometimes not.

Filling out a form… A very American form for an European

For most Europeans it is quite strange to have to define your ethnic / racial group. I think that I have only done it once, except for filling out all those forms for the US Immigration, and that was when applying for a job in Great Britain. I don’t know if Europe is heading towards the American and British way of categorising people, but I am not sure that I like putting ethnic / racial labels on people. Nevertheless, I am aware that people are labelled, regardless of whether or not they have checked a box – a name is deemed “foreign” and the job application is put in a certain pile, a person sees a head scarf or turban and associates it with something unwanted… And I guess the checking of a box is supposed to help avoid discrimination, but it all seems very arbitrary.

*) However Puerto Rican athletes can compete under the Puerto Rican flag and today for the first time ever, did a Puerto Rican win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics – Javier Culson won silver in 400 metres hurdles! Felicidades! (and thanks to my dad for telling me the news!)

Friday theme / Show & tell: Speaking of languages…

Today’s theme has been chosen by Musikanta in Sweden and is quite fittingly: “Speaking of languages…”! Maybe you are already bored of my language posts but it is a subject that affects my everyday life as an expat and that is probably why I keep returning to this issue…

Musikanta actually asked me a few weeks ago how I ended up in Brussels and then Puerto Rico with a Spanish husband, and I have been asking myself a few times how it all started…

Did it start when I moved with my parents and siblings to England in 1988, and I had to learn the language in order to keep up in the English school? Or did it start even earlier?

Part of the lawn that was full of four-leaf clovers when I was a child… even if my brother and I never found any!

My parents have always travelled with us three children – and my childhood is filled with travel stories; my first trip “abroad” was by ferry to Helsingör (Elsinore) in Denmark (my travel outfit was a cute little red dress and a white scarf around my hair – very chic!) just before my 1st birthday; the first time I drank from a straw was in a autobahn restaurant somewhere in Germany and my parents had some trouble teaching me how to “suck up” my drink; the Swiss chef who made porridge especially for me in the hotel by Lake Geneva but I just cried because his big red nose really scared me; my father’s uncle’s Swiss wife who always found four-leaf clovers for me and my brother in their wonderful garden; the bird shit I sat in just in front of Notre-Dame in Paris in 1982; the toilet attendant I didn’t understand at Windsor Castle so I went into the gents’ where my father and brother were – many of these memories include the notion of not understanding the language spoken to me or around me.

The village in the south of France – there is a similar photo of me and my brother standing outside the café… but I took this picture when I revisited the village in 2005

All the while we were travelling around Europe by car, my mother would try to entertain us by inventing games (spot different cars or flags) or to sing songs. One of my strongest memories is learning the song Brother John in different languages:

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping
Brother John, brother John?
Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!
Ding, dong, ding. Ding, dong, ding

Bruder Jakob, Bruder Jakob,
Schläfst du noch? Schläfst du noch?
Hörst du nicht die Glocken, Hörst du nicht die Glocken?
Ding, dang, dong, Ding, dang, dong

Broder Jakob, Broder Jakob,
Sover du? Sover du?
Hör du inte klockan? Hör du inte klockan?
Ding, ding, dong, Ding, ding, dong

(this song also reminds me of a great Midsummer’s eve party in Brussels when I had printed out the song in several European languages – it was a great “snaps song” for the very international mix of guests!)

Maybe that’s how my fascination for languages was triggered?

Or maybe it was the visit of the three sisters of my mother’s French pen pal Anne-Marie, all of them with double-names (Marie-Hélène is the only one I remember) and their black friend Eddie in 1981? It was probably one of the first times that my brother and I met a black person and we thought that Eddie was so cool! The four French visitors arrived one morning in an old Citroën, they had actually slept in the car just outside Dalby (10 km away) as they were too embarrassed to arrive earlier than announced. It was a great few days – Eddie played my father’s guitar, the girls cooked huge portions of pasta and tomato sauce, smoked cigarettes and drank wine with my parents… The French sisters taught my brother and I to count in French, and we sat up late at night on the patio listening to the adults’ conversation in broken English and French. I observed with fascination these French twentysomethings who were so different from my parents and the other adults I knew in our middle class neighbourhood. My brother was probably more interested in the Citroën, as it behaved strangely by rising up when the engine was turned on…

The bakery where my brother and I practised one of our first sentences in French!

A few years later we spent a few summers in the south of France and every morning my brother and I used to walk on our own to the boulangerie (bakery) in the small village to buy “une baguette et un bâtard, s’il vous plaît“… We were so proud that we were allowed to go to the bakery without our parents and also that we could buy bread in French!

So, speaking of languages, these are probably some of the reasons why I am so interested in learning new languages – to be able to communicate with people! I have always loved travelling and getting to know new cultures but in order to do that, I understood from a very early age that you need to speak different languages…

I remember how my parents discussed what kind of “infusion” (third from the bottom in the left-hand column) it was that you could order in the village bar in the south of France – nowadays I know that it means herbal tea!

The other Friday bloggers can be found below:
Anki, Anna, Annika, Christel, Curieux, Desiree, Emma, Erica, IamAnnika, IngaBritt, Jemaya, Lena W, Leopardia, Mais-oui, Marie, Mia D, Millan, Moster Mjölgumpa, Musikanta, Nilla, Norrsken & Stjärnfall, Petra H, Saltis, Sara, Simone, Sparkling, Strandmamman, Taina, Under Ytan, Victoria V and Västmanländskan.

Bilingual and bi-cultural – is that a problem? Part II: Learning a new language

I am really pleased that so many of you thought that my post about bilingualism and bi-culturalism was so interesting! It was fascinating to read everybody’s comments about your own experiences, thoughts and ideas. Thanks!

As you all know I am taking our time in Puerto Rico as an opportunity to learn Spanish – because it is O’s language, but also because it is a world language and it is the language of Puerto Rico. I never really had any interest in learning Spanish before meeting O – my inclination has always been towards Italian, which I studied for 3 years in high school + I lived one year in Italy. It is quite ironic really that one of my best friends, L chose Spanish over French, and I Italian over Spanish in school and now we are trying to learn “each other’s language” because of our French and Spanish lovers. I complain about forgetting my Italian and L complains about not being able to speak Spanish anymore even though she does (did?) speak Spanish fluently after 1 +1 year in Spain.

Anyway, learning your partner’s language is not always very easy. As previously mentioned, I feel that it is difficult to change language in a relationship, regardless whether it is a romantic relationship or “just” a friendship. It also demands quite a lot of patience of both persons in the relationship – the one learning the language, and the one whose mother tongue is being learnt. It is important that the one who already speaks the language doesn’t make fun of the way the other person speaks – or make comments like “Oh, you have such a cute accent” (that’s the worst comment ever, no-one will appreciate such a comment*!!). Respect the student’s efforts and encourage instead of mocking!

I was complaining to my Spanish teacher the other day that O got annoyed with me when I asked him how to say “isolation” in Spanish. My teacher laughed and asked if there was shouting involved. O and I hardly ever (and that is almost never!!) argue and it wasn’t really a full blown argument but we both got annoyed – when O kept telling me “aislado” and I told him that that’s “isolated”! I wanted isolation, not isolated, not isolate but isolation**!! In the end I said that it was lucky that he is not my Spanish teacher, grrr…

It is incredible how much patience is involved in teaching a language and you probably need to have that professional distance between the teacher and the student in order to not get completely frustrated! In the first blog post about my Spanish studies last year, I mentioned that I kept putting an -i where there was no i in the verb despertarse (to wake up) and I said it with double pronouns (después de me despiertarme) I am still amazed at the patience the teacher showed when trying to correct me! But then again, he was paid to be patient…

Spanish tapas menu

However, as I already stated in the previous post, I don’t really find it a problem learning O’s language and it is fun most of the time! We are slowly introducing more and more Spanish in our relationship – sometimes at home, sometimes when we are out and about (when I don’t want the locals to assume that we are Americans because we speak English!!) but mostly when we are socialising with Puerto Ricans and other Spanish-speaking people. Last weekend we had brunch in Swedish-French-Spanish-English, but actually mostly in Spanish! And last Friday we spoke Spanish and French over a lasagne dinner with two French girls. It definitely makes conversation more interesting when mixing languages!!

Look out for Part III on the subject of bilingualism and biculturalism…

*) I don’t know how many French people have told me that I have a sweet accent when I speak French – they don’t seem to realise that it is a very patronising comment. I would never say to them that they have a cute accent in English for example! There is nothing wrong with saying “Oh, you have an interesting accent” or something alike, but pointing out that it is “cute” implies that you don’t really take the person seriously… Maybe an overreaction but that’s how I feel!
**) Isolation = aislamiento in Spanish, I had to look it up in a dictionary eventually…

Integration indicators

My resolution to be a bit more productive this week with the blog wasn’t really successful… I will try again next week!

When I move to a new place, regardless if it is a new city or a new country, I have two indicators to gauge / measure my integration; when I start randomly meeting people in the street that I know (an earlier indicator might be that I recognise people in the street but I don’t actually know them) and when I can give directions to people who are lost. The second indicator is of course not just depending on my knowledge of my surroundings but also of the local language.

The first person I started to recognise in San Juan was an old woman who would always walk by my bus stop on her way home from the supermarket. She also recognised me and we used to say “buenos días” to each other. I don’t take the bus anylonger since I finished my Spanish lessons at the language school in October, and I kind of miss the old lady.

However, every time I walk to Starbucks or l’Alliance Francaise I walk by an old man sitting by a shopping trolley in the same spot every day. I think he is homeless but I am not sure. He usually sells various trinkets from his trolley and most people seem to know him - they say hello to him and exchange a few words while walking by. I do the same nowadays, and I get worried if I don’t see him in his usual spot.

This week I was sitting in Starbucks with my Spanish teacher talking about my weekend and telling him that we had made new friends, a French-Swede A and his Puerto Rican wife, when A appears just in front of me saying “Hej” – needless to say I was a little shocked and asked if he had heard that I was talking about him!? I probably seemed really confused – and I was, not knowing if I should speak Swedish, Spanish, French or English when introducing him to my teacher!

I asked of course my Spanish teacher afterwards how you say “Speak of the devil” in Spanish and it is “Hablando del rey de Roma” (Speaking about the Roman king) . In Swedish we say “When you talk about the trolls…[they are standing in the hall]“ Check out this Wikipedia link for similar expressions in other languages!

One of the local Starbucks

This morning I had another random encounter when walking to Starbucks and I met my neighbour S. Nothing strange really but it is actually the first time (in 1½ years) that I meet her in the street. During my lesson in the coffee place, my teacher L and I talked briefly to a Spanish girl who was sitting with her laptop at one of the tables. She told us that she was just visiting Puerto Rico and that she lives in Florida. She and I exchanged a few impressions of Puerto Rico & the US compared to Europe before leaving. 

Imagine my surprise when I met her in the service elevator in my apartment building 20 minutes ago!! I was just going down to throw away the garbage bag and she appeared with her boyfriend carrying some boxes. She said “Hola, qué tal?” and I answered her but I didn’t really figure out who she was until they had stepped out of the elevator!

So, do all these encounters mean that I am fully integrated in San Juan? Well, probably not but I am working on it – and I have been able to give a few directions but sometimes I still have to answer “lo siento pero no tengo idea” (I am sorry but I have no idea [where that is]).

And of course there are a lot more factors that play in for a full integration, the ones I have mentioned are just the first steps… Integration is probably not even the correct word anyway, maybe “settling in” is a better expression!

Bilingual and bi-cultural, is that a problem? (Part I)

On Friday evening we participated in a French-Puerto Rican cultural event at the Alliance Francaise – a book written by a French author, Laurent LeMaitre, was being launched. We listened to the bilingual presentation of the book by the author himself, his wife – the translator from French to Spanish, and the father-in-law who runs the publishing company. Afterwards we mingled with Puerto Ricans and French people, and we made some new friends during the evening.

A bilingual street in Brussels – the name of the street means Street of the Fat Tower in French, but what does it mean in Flemish!?

The event made me think about us bilingual and bi-cultural couples… Every time I explain to people that my husband is Spanish, I get the question – which language do you speak together? This is especially puzzling for people who hear that we met in Brussels, a French-speaking city (officially bilingual, but not really). I always say But of course we speak English… but I guess that is just obvious to the two of us!!

Even proper names change in different languages – Jozef, Joseph, José, Josef…

At the event on Friday I spoke in French to two French girls married to Puerto Ricans and O talked in Spanish to a French guy married to a Puerto Rican woman; and of course the language issue came up! Both the two Puerto Ricans married to the French know how to speak French; but one couple speaks mostly Spanish at home and the other couple speaks mainly French. And we, the Swedish-Spanish couple, speak English at home, but we are slowly trying to introduce Spanish as well…

One way of solving the bilingual street sign problem in Brussels!

First of all we all agreed that it is very difficult to change language as a couple – if you met in English / French / Spanish, you will probably continue speaking that language. This is clear in the example of the two French-Puerto Rican couples – the couple speaking French met in France, the Spanish-speaking couple met in Puerto Rico! O and I are different though as we, a Spaniard and a Swede, met in a third [bilingual] country with a third language (French), we speak a fourth language (English) and now live in a fifth country which is also bilingual! [I would probably need to make a diagram here]

One of the girls told me that she has a French-Swedish friend who lives with her Spanish boyfriend in Sweden (or it might have been a Spanish-Swede with a French, but nevermind!) and the couple speaks English together. The girl had complained about the language issue and said that it was very tiring to not speak her mother tongue[s] in the relationship and especially when having to speak a language that is not neither partner’s language. So, obviously the question to me was, is it a problem speaking a third language together? I answered that I have never felt that it has been a problem for O and I that we speak English in our relationship – not something that annoys / tires us, nor something that has caused misunderstandings. I overheard O telling the Puerto Rican husband of one of the girls that he thinks that my English is better than his, but that it is still not an issue in our relationship (that is another discussion which I will save for later).

Whether or not different mother tongues in a relationship becomes a language barrier depends most likely on the level of understanding and as well as on the personalities of the two persons! In a way it is more democratic to speak a third language, which is foreign to both partners. It can also be construed as unfair if one person learns to speak the other language but not vice-versa. However, I have never felt that way when it comes to my efforts of learning Spanish, and O’s almost inexistant Swedish. There are quite a big difference between having to learn Spanish, a world language and the only language my family-in-law speaks, and to learn Swedish, which is not really a useful language outside of Sweden and when English works pretty well inside of the country as well! I also believe that learning Spanish will be very useful for my future career, regardless of where we end up living.

Ale’s rocks (Ales stenar) – a viking settlement on the south coast of Skåne, Sweden

Not learning your partner’s mother tongue can nevertheless be interpreted as an unwillingness to get to know his / her culture and background. In our case I believe that O is showing a huge interest to adopt Swedish culture – eating Kalles Kaviar and Herrgårdsost (Swedish cheese), enjoying watching Swedish films, celebrate Midsummer’s eve and inviting friends to Adventsfika (Swedish celebration in December) and absolutely loving IKEA! He is interested in learning Swedish and I am sure that he will pick up quite a fair amount eventually.

This kind of questions is not just applicable to bilingual couples, but also any expat who lives in a foreign country – with or without a foreign language. Do you try to learn the new language or do you get by in English (or any other second language)? Do you expect people to be able to speak to you in the languages you know?

I have so many more thoughts on this matter and I haven’t even touched upon culture, but I will save it for Part II…

All the photos except the one of the Spanish map are from Brussels, a city which is officially bilingual (French & Flemish / Dutch).

What a mess – in different languages

The language centre where I study Spanish has been a real mess lately as they are refurbishing the offices. However, the mess has taught me two new Puerto Rican expressions (see below), and lead to a reflection on how to say the same thing in other languages:

• Puerto Rico - Que revolú! Or Que arroz con pollo! (rice with chicken – I like this one!!)
• Italy - Che casino!
• Spain - Que jaleo**! or Que lío!
• France - Quel bordel!
• Sweden – Vilken soppa!

So, chaos can be associated with a revolution, a casino*, a brothel or a soup!! How about that for a mess Do you have any other examples of how to describe a mess?

*) actually casino means brothel in Italian! Casinò is the place where you gamble! I didn’t know this until I looked it up on my favourite dictionary on-line: WordReference. It is a great web-site where you can find words in English, French, Italian, Portugese and Spanish, there are also forums where language / translation issues are being discussed!

**) also a dance from Andalucía.

Moqueta IS a Spanish word!!

Ha! I just found out that the word that I thought that I made up last week, and that my teacher also thought I had invented – moqueta (I got it from the French moquette) IS a Spanish word!!!

¿Tu estás adivinando? (You are guessing?) – is a phrase my teacher uses a lot during our lessons…

But, guess who’s going to tell her Spanish teacher tomorrow that she was right and he was wrong
How I enjoy being right… ¡Tuve razón! (I was right!)

Not a moqueta (fitted carpet) but a tiled floor from a torn-down building in Ponce.

However, I have to defend his honour a little; there are very few homes with fitted carpets in Puerto Rico – for obvious reasons… The floors are usually tiled, marble, or wood. O and I saw a few apartments with fitted carpets when we were house-hunting last summer – coming from two countries where fitted carpets are not common (i.e Spain and Sweden), it seemed especially unfitting* in a place like this hot and humid island.

The Spanish visit is almost over, the guests are leaving tomorrow and I will try to write soon about our excursions during the weekend.

*) trying to be funny!?

An excursion in Spanish to the Central Mountains

On Friday I had my first big Spanish test – I was going to the Central Mountains with my Puerto Rican neighbour S! I was a little nervous, but not as nervous as when I invited her for a fika a few weeks ago; I had baked some chocolate & coconut squares (moccarutor / Kärleksmums) but was too shy to make a phone call so I invited her by mail In the end, we spent over two hours having coffee and talking [in Spanish] so I knew that we probably wouldn’t have any problem finding things to say during the excursion… However, the issue here was rather would I be able to say whatever I wanted to say??

We started off quite late in the morning, and our destination was S’s hometown Barranquitas (translated into Place of Little Mud Slides), which is small mountain town towards the east of the island. The town is famous for being the home of two Puerto Rican statesmen – Luis Muñoz Rivera (LMR) and his grandson Luis Muñoz Marin (the San Juan airport is named after LMM). The Lonely Planet compares Barranquitas to Windsor Castle in the legacy that it has given the island!

On the way we stopped at one of the roadside restaurants that you can see all over the island. S bought arroz con habichuelas (rice with beans), bacalao frito (fried dried cod) and some fried meat that we packed into the car and continued our drive on the steep and very zig-zagy mountain roads. She was very worried that I would get car sick but I told her that I am used to the roads in the Alpes… We only drove through Barranquitas on our way to S’s brother’s place – she pointed out LMR’s house, but it looked like an interesting town and I will make sure that O and I visit soon.

Finally arrived at our destination, I got to meet some of S’s nephews and nieces, her niece’s young son M, her brother of course and the funny dog Pelusa. They live in a big house on a steep mountain sloop with pine trees (!!), avocado trees (not avocado season at the moment unfortunately) and mango trees. I asked our host if they are not worried about land slides but he said that the mountain is supposed to be safe. All the houses around have their own generators in case of power cuts* (especially during hurricane season when the central mountains take the brunt of the winds – fortunately for us in San Juan…).

The Central Mountains, Puerto Rico

We had a great big lunch with all kinds of traditional food – they made me taste 4 or 5 different root vegetables that were boiled just like potatoes; yautía (taro root??), batatas (Puerto Rican sweet potato, not to be confused with patatas – potatoes in Spanish but in Puerto Rico called papas) and some others whose names I don’t remember… It was a very starchy meal together with the rice and beans, and two kinds of bacalao; bacalao frito which was like a hot salad and cold bacalao salad (bacalao, boiled egg and tomatoes). I also got to try a corn pastele (almost like the Mexican tamale). Read more about Puerto Rican cuisine on the following links; Wikipedia post and vocabulary of Puerto Rican cooking. S has promised to teach me how to cook Puerto Rican food and I will make sure to ask her to write down all the names of ingredients and dishes.

After the meal, S took me and her great nephew (who took his afternoon nap in the car) along a part of la Ruta panorámica (the scenic route that cuts across the central mountains from east to west) and at el Mirador Villalba-Orocovis we admired the views both to the south - it was a bit hazy but we were supposed to have seen Ponce, and to the north towards San Juan. Another place that I want to show O, and there are great picnic opportunities with tables and benches overlooking the flat south coast.  

The picnic area at el Mirador de Villalba-Orocovis

It was a great day, and I really enjoyed talking Spanish to everybody – I notice that both my understanding and ability to make myself understood are improving even though I get very frustrated with the verb conjugations… It is exhausting though and I was taking a late nap when O came home from work at 19.00 on Friday evening

The view over the flat south coast from the Central Mountains

This week I am going to watch a telenovela (a soap opera, usually from Colombia or Mexico – people are crazy about them in the hispanic world) for the first time as part of my Spanish homework and our first Spanish visitors are arriving on Wednesday so I will get lots of chances to practise more…

*) We have had at least 4 power cuts this morning while I have been writing this… Our building also has a generator but it takes a few seconds for it to kick in and in the meanwhile my computer dies as my laptop’s battery is gone, and I have restart the computer every time – arrrgggh. The weather is CRAP, rainy and so grey that I have had to turn on the lights!

A bad Spanish day and a grammatical dilemma

My 20th Spanish lesson and I thought that I would celebrate… instead I wanted to bury my head in the sand – wow, what a bad Spanish day I had today!! Or can I blame it on the complicated grammatical exercises we were doing?? I am not so sure… my head was just not with me today

After having discussed the difference (but still not really understood) between te has, te ha, se ha, se han and le han*… my new[ish] teacher A gave me an easier task – to read from the inflight magazine of American Eagle! I read [aloud] one article about minimasajes (mini-massages) at the Ritz-Carlton (don’t remember where) and a French chocolate shop in New York. I didn’t understand the word estadounidense (also difficult to say) – which turned out to be easy peasy – it’s a citizen of the United States (Estados Unidos)! But my biggest problem was to pronounce Ritz-Carlton and Jaques in Spanish or French!!

Not only is there the issue of should I pronounce Jaques as in French even though I am reading in Spanish? And how do I do that in a smooth, fluent manner? If I do want to pronounce it the French way, I need to stop, reshape my mouth and say the word, stop, reshape the mouth and the position of the tongue and continue in Spanish… Is it just me, or have you also noticed the difficulty in pronouncing a foreign word in another foreign language?? [maybe it's just me...?? I had the same problem with English words when speaking French]

I actually arrived so early to the lesson today thanks to the bus being early (un milagro!! a miracle) that I did some of the homework for next time while waiting for my lesson to start. However, one of the exercises contained some expressions that I thought that I understood – until the teacher wanted me to use them! Once again my brain didn’t want to cooperate when I was thinking of something to say… I am just so bad in coming up with spontaneous examples in general, and I just couldn’t think of a situation where I would say Qué fastidio or Fíjate! (How annoying / irritating! and something like Look / listen!).

Oh well, fortunately I have at least another 20 lessons to work on these problems, and to improve my imagination…

And to continue my issues with Spanish:

Next Wednesday we are getting our first Spanish visitors!! O’s two childhood friends LC and A are coming to visit us, which is great. Unfortunately O will be in Georgia for the first few days so I will be taking care of the guests and I want of course to speak Spanish with them (I have only met LC before and he does speak English).

But, there is a but… In the Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico and South America (my Spanish book is based on Mexican Spanish) they don’t use the 2nd person plural form vosotros (you)! So far, I have only learnt to conjugate 1st, 2nd, 3rd person singular + 1st and 3rd person plural… Instead of using the 2nd person plural, you use the form Ustedes which [in Spain] is the polite form for 2nd person plural**. As O said, it’s better to be over-polite than rude… and of course I could try to memorize all the conjugations for vosotros this week (how hard can it be??). Or just be lazy and explain to our guests that they shouldn’t take my politeness personally 

*) I am still not sure that I completely understand it, – I have never liked pronouns… but I have promised to work on the different constructions until Thursday though.

**) I will try to explain it better, the polite form is constructed in the same way in Italian (with Lei): if you would like to be polite to one person, you should conjugate the verb as 3rd person singular plus adding Usted (pronoun), for two persons, you conjugate according to 3rd person plural plus use Ustedes.