Linguistically Challenged
Now I know at least one person with a linguistics degree reads this regularly (perhaps two), but hopefully everyone else will enjoy it too.
I am struggling with the local language. To be expected, but my strugle is not that I don't understand it (although I don't understand it well, I can get along). My strugle is that when I speak it, every foreign language I have ever tried to learn seriously comes out (Japanese doesn't count, I only dabbled).
So for one, I go to the toy store last night to purchase the requisite bribe for Isaac, who from all reports has earned it quite nicely. I get back into the car, and manage to communicate to the driver that now I didn't need to go to the hotel, I had enough cash, could we just go straight to the art gallery.
1. I realized later that the words I used (No quiero hotel, solamente galleria) translated roughly to: "No need Hotel. Only Gallery.
But it got the point across. Eric (who speaks fluent spanish and english, and was on the phone when I got back into the car) was quite impressed.
2. The major flaw, was that "La Galleria" is the name of a major shopping mall. And when we came hurtling off the roundabout, in much the same way the Galileo probe got a little gravity boost from Jupiter, I saw the looming great mall, and realized my mistake. Imagine my horror when Don Roger turns into the parking lot, and I had to try and explain "No no no. The Art Gallery."
3. At said art gallery, I committed major "dumb american" faux pas number 312. While she was ringing up my purchases (ok, adding them up on a calculator), I was glancing at a very left wing looking newspaper, and trying to understand it. She offered it to me, saying it was free, and I declined, trying to say "No Entiendo" which means "I don't understand", but instead falling back on "No Comprende", which I beleive means "I don't comprehend", or more succinctly "I'm kind of dumb."
So anyway, after she wraps up Noelle's gift (I pray to GOD she likes this one, cause the last one was a total bomb), I find myself looking down at the newspaper. I look up at her and say "Mucho Gracias" (thank you very much), and she replies with something I don't recognize.
So I, in my somewhat stunted state, reply "No Gracias" to what I think is another offer of the newspaper, "No comprende."
She says it again, and I reply "No, no gracias."
Then she looks at me with a somewhat quizical expression and says "You're welcome." in English. She had been saying "De Nada" which means "you're welcome" and I had been basically replying with "No, No Newspaper, Damnit. I'm too dumb!"
Needless to say Eric who had let me down quite badly as a translator at this point, proceeded to laugh his ass off all the way to dinner.
4. Today, I caught myself speaking a language that can only be described as "Melange" (french for "mix").
The sentance was roughly "Combo numero Quatro, por favour, avec Coca Light."
So...let's examine that phrase by phrase.
"Combo numero quatro" = Combo number four (in Spanish)
"...avec..." = with (in French)
"Coca Light" = Coke light (Spanish/English).
So linguistically, I'm speaking the equivalent of Minestrone soup.
It wasn't as bad as the other day when I said
"Es ist muy bueno."
"Es ist..." It is ( German)
"...muy bueno" very good (Spanish).
So the word Hodge Podge keeps springing to mind, and frankly it is only a testament to the incredibly forgiving and "Relejado" (laid back) attitude of all the Nica's I've met that I have received anything other than giggles, and confused stares.
The lady in the art gallery notwithstanding.
Now I know at least one person with a linguistics degree reads this regularly (perhaps two), but hopefully everyone else will enjoy it too.
I am struggling with the local language. To be expected, but my strugle is not that I don't understand it (although I don't understand it well, I can get along). My strugle is that when I speak it, every foreign language I have ever tried to learn seriously comes out (Japanese doesn't count, I only dabbled).
So for one, I go to the toy store last night to purchase the requisite bribe for Isaac, who from all reports has earned it quite nicely. I get back into the car, and manage to communicate to the driver that now I didn't need to go to the hotel, I had enough cash, could we just go straight to the art gallery.
1. I realized later that the words I used (No quiero hotel, solamente galleria) translated roughly to: "No need Hotel. Only Gallery.
But it got the point across. Eric (who speaks fluent spanish and english, and was on the phone when I got back into the car) was quite impressed.
2. The major flaw, was that "La Galleria" is the name of a major shopping mall. And when we came hurtling off the roundabout, in much the same way the Galileo probe got a little gravity boost from Jupiter, I saw the looming great mall, and realized my mistake. Imagine my horror when Don Roger turns into the parking lot, and I had to try and explain "No no no. The Art Gallery."
3. At said art gallery, I committed major "dumb american" faux pas number 312. While she was ringing up my purchases (ok, adding them up on a calculator), I was glancing at a very left wing looking newspaper, and trying to understand it. She offered it to me, saying it was free, and I declined, trying to say "No Entiendo" which means "I don't understand", but instead falling back on "No Comprende", which I beleive means "I don't comprehend", or more succinctly "I'm kind of dumb."
So anyway, after she wraps up Noelle's gift (I pray to GOD she likes this one, cause the last one was a total bomb), I find myself looking down at the newspaper. I look up at her and say "Mucho Gracias" (thank you very much), and she replies with something I don't recognize.
So I, in my somewhat stunted state, reply "No Gracias" to what I think is another offer of the newspaper, "No comprende."
She says it again, and I reply "No, no gracias."
Then she looks at me with a somewhat quizical expression and says "You're welcome." in English. She had been saying "De Nada" which means "you're welcome" and I had been basically replying with "No, No Newspaper, Damnit. I'm too dumb!"
Needless to say Eric who had let me down quite badly as a translator at this point, proceeded to laugh his ass off all the way to dinner.
4. Today, I caught myself speaking a language that can only be described as "Melange" (french for "mix").
The sentance was roughly "Combo numero Quatro, por favour, avec Coca Light."
So...let's examine that phrase by phrase.
"Combo numero quatro" = Combo number four (in Spanish)
"...avec..." = with (in French)
"Coca Light" = Coke light (Spanish/English).
So linguistically, I'm speaking the equivalent of Minestrone soup.
It wasn't as bad as the other day when I said
"Es ist muy bueno."
"Es ist..." It is ( German)
"...muy bueno" very good (Spanish).
So the word Hodge Podge keeps springing to mind, and frankly it is only a testament to the incredibly forgiving and "Relejado" (laid back) attitude of all the Nica's I've met that I have received anything other than giggles, and confused stares.
The lady in the art gallery notwithstanding.
posted by Jason Allen at 9:52 PM
1 Comments:
OH yeah. When I was taking Japanese at Uni, I would add French morphological endings to Japanese verbs. For example "ikimasu" is "to go." If I wanted to say "let's go" instead of "ikimasho" I would come out with "ikimas-ons". Made perfect sense to me, and to my sister's friend who was also in the class and had spent a year in France... :)
Also in the Philippines I lived and hung out mostly with Japanese friends. One roommate I had for a while had very little English, so I would speak to her in slow English, she would speak to me in simplified Japanese and we would clarify in Tagalog. To this day I can speak neither Japanese nor Tagalog without randomly inserting words from the other language. FORTUNATELY I'm now good enough in French that it usually stays the hell out of it. Except for the Spanish words in Tagalog which...sigh. Yeah. I understand totally! :)
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