I’m learning Spanish, not trying to offend you. Honest!

By Richard Morley.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, “Experience is the name we give to our mistakes”. Experience can be a good teacher, unless you are a politician, but that’s another story! I also think there’s some truth in saying the greater the mistake, the greater the learning possibility.

Actually, I would like to rephrase that: The greater the embarrassment potential within the mistake, the chances are much higher that the learner won’t ever repeat that mistake. Again with the caveat that this does not necessarily apply to politicians!

And what greater source of potential embarrassment could there be than that of attempting to communicate in another language.

In another post  I wrote a long time ago I high-lighted the danger of accent blindness when reading Spanish by confusing “Inglés” with “Ingles”. That the difference was explained to me before I committed the blunder publicly was a close shave indeed!

But that was a couple of years back. I have plenty of opportunities to disgrace myself linguistically since then.

How well I remember the time, when enjoying a coffee with a sweet lady in a crowded café, I declared quite loudly that a certain Spanish politician needed a penis. I meant to say he needed support. The word I needed was “Apoyo”, but I mispronounced and said something else entirely. Aforementioned sweet lady quickly amended my pronunciation.

And what confused mental dyslexia had me pointing out to the same sweet lady, while we were walking across a sunlit meadow, all the “testicles” running about in the field. Rabbits in Spanish are “conejos”. Bilingual anagrams are a minefield when you learn new vocabulary from reading and not from listening.

I am convinced the Spanish have so designed their language to get maximum humorous entertainment from us guiris as we stumble through their lexicon. I mean, what could be more innocent than wanting to lend a hand in the kitchen by declaring that you will sweep up the mess. The verb in question is “cepillar” (the double “ll” is pronounced like the y in yacht or young) – to brush, to sweep and in woodwork, to plane. If you check it on Wordrefernce.com those definitions are there plus the act of finishing something, cleaning the teeth, and, surprisingly, killing someone. It’s only at the bottom of the list you find, “vulg. Tener relaciones sexuales con alguien.” Yes, to have sex. Now tell me they haven’t done this on purpose!

Actually, I report that last with gleeful schadenfreude. Last week I was with a group of Spanish schoolteachers and one, as part of a presentation, gave us a talk on first aid and in particular, Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation; the method of using mouth to mouth breathing and chest compression to resuscitate a drowned or unconscious person or “CPR”. The way she pronounced those three letters had the Spanish members of her audience convulsed with lascivious laughter. These paragons of educational virtue took great delight in explaining the fun found in their colleague’s slight mispronunciation, particularly while demonstrating on a muscular, and quite handsome young man.

On a similar note, it is perhaps not a good idea to tell a lady you have only just met that you want to run away with her. The list of meanings in Wordreference for  “Correr” is quite extensive!

Now I know that Spanish ladies tend to speak their mind. “Eufemismo” exists as  almost the same word as “euphemism” in English, but it doesn’t seem to exist in practice. Spanish ladies do not call a spade a wooden handled digging device. I consider myself a man of the world. It takes a lot to shock me. But I was surprised when my female friends spoke about “making their bikini” or “working on their bikini”. All sorts of inappropriate visions came into my head. I am not the only one. When mentioning this to a newly arrived lady teacher from the UK, she too assumed waxing, shaving and unwanted hair was involved, when in fact it means no more than losing a bit of winter weight to look good in their swim wear.

It has got to the stage now that I am suspicious of new words – or new uses of old ones. If I come across a new idiom or hear a familiar word used in an unusual context my vulgarity antenna goes up. Not that it should worry me. See above, man of the world etc etc, but I do have some, shall we say, “old-fashioned” acquaintances who might be either shocked at the word / idiom, or embarrassed to explain it to me.

These words come from surprising sources. I have been working my way through the fictional autobiographical stories of eight year old Manolito Gafotas, who lives in Carabanchel (alto), a district of southwest Madrid.

The books were written by a Journalist, Elvira Lindo, in the nineties and quickly became a huge literary success, followed by a TV series, a couple of feature films and awards for Children’s literature. But in the books, when Manolito wishes to express his frustration he frequently uses the word “Joé”. My dictionary does not have this word. Neither does Wordreference. So I asked, because she was there, a lady of “a certain age” to tell me what it meant. She flustered and was a little embarrassed to explain that it was the kids’ version of “Joder”, the Spanish “F” word, used in much the same way that “Miércoles” replaces “Mierda” in children’s speech – at least when adults are listening. 

These stories have very quickly become classics of Spanish Children’s literature. I am sure that good parents the Spanish speaking world over buy these books for their children, or read the stories at bedtime. I hope they are ready to explain to their little darlings the meaning of some of the words. But I have struck this particular lady off my list of “Spanish explainers”. I would not wish to embarrass her again.

I could, of course, consult my copy of “Pardon my Spanish”, which is a complete guide to the less polite words of the Spanish lexicon and in which the words are graded from “Able to use in front of Granny” to “ONLY EVER use with close friends!”

Of course there less innocuous words to confuse. I remember a Dutch friends who asked an optician to check her “eights” (ochos) instead of her “eyes” (ojos). I recently told a dentist I had lost an “embalse” (dam) instead of an “empaste” (filling). The look of perplexity on his face was a sight to behold. Trying to be more clever than I actually am I thought baby pigeons ( little “palomas”) were a “palomitas”, which is really “popcorn”.

But it’s the big bloopers that stay in the mind. The ones with such embarrassing consequences you will never forget them.

Experience might be a hard teacher, but it’s a good one.

I have a PS, but it’s x-rated, so if you are of a nervous disposition do not read any further.

At one of the English Villages I attend, a rather straight-laced American lady had bitten the inside of her cheek while eating and this had raised a painful blister. Finding out, illegally, from one of the students that the word for blister is “empolla” (but not quite hearing it correctly) she visited a pharmacy and explained she had “a polla” in her mouth, while jabbing a finger in and out of her open mouth to demonstrate. The student nearly collapsed in laughter, particularly when retelling the tale later. “Polla” (pronounced poy-ya) is slang for penis. The student reported the pharmacists was quite surprised!

You continued reading, didn’t you. I told you not to!

What embarrassing mistakes have you made?? 

With a view to communication

It was a language that brought me to Spain. But the language was my own. One of the largest, and growing, industries in Madrid is the language business, and what language do the Spanish want to learn more than any other – English. There are companies here that rely on English Speaking volunteers to help their Spanish clients get to grips with the intricacies and oddities of the tongue of Shakespeare and Twain and I will write about those very soon. But when I first came here I had a language problem of my own: I spoke no Spanish.

Well, that’s not quite true. From a vacation taken many years previously in the Canary Islands I had one very important phrase, “Una cerveza, por favor”. A beer, please. On the pleasantly warm evening when I first arrived in Madrid that phrase was the only one I used. And it worked. I sat at a terrace bar surrounded by beautiful señoritas and drank my first beer. Within a week I had learnt to modify my only sentence to, “Una cerveza fria, por favor”: make it a cold one!

Since then my knowledge of the Spanish language has not exactly come on in leaps and bounds, more in trips and stumbles. But I can communicate: I shop for food, I get my hair cut almost the way I like it (but apparently that failure of communication between client and hairdresser happens even if you are fluent!) and I mostly make myself understood in the majority of circumstances.

When, as children, we learn our native tongue, our mothers do not tell us about verbs and nouns and adjectives (or conditionals, subjunctives, prepositions and whether these words are perfect, imperfect, or pluperfect for that matter). So why do teachers of second languages instruct their pupils in a language no one understands. Dammit, I was fluent in English before I started school (more or less) without knowing a scrap of grammar, it should be easier now I am all grown up.

A language is like a wall. The words, the vocabulary, are the bricks. The grammar is the mortar that keeps it all together. Well, you can build a wall just with bricks and the language equivalent is you sound like Tarzan. “Want beer. Cold”. Communication is established and a need fulfilled – but you sound like an idiot.

When I look back it amazes me how many of my Spanish friends were happy to consort with an idiot. Like the good friends they turned out to be, and they are, you might think they would encourage me in my endeavours to speak their language. But no; in me they had a ready made way of practising their English. Hmm. Thanks guys!

I spent a year sounding like Tarzan, then decided to do something about it. There are probably as many schools teaching Spanish to Foreigners in Madrid as there are Schools teaching English to Spaniards, but the circumstances of my life made it awkward to sign up for a course. So, I bought a book and began. That book didn’t really do it for me, so I bought another … and another. Eventually I had quite a library – and still I wasn’t getting anywhere.

You see, there are different ways to approach learning a language. I envy those who can learn by rote. They just absorb the vocabulary and the grammatical rules and never question anything. They become fluent in no time. Me? I want to know why that phrase means what it means and why that grammatical rule is used. It seriously impedes my progress, but that’s the way I am.

But we live in a world where just about anything you need to know lies hidden beneath a keyboard. The Internet! Do you have any idea how many websites there are that want to teach you a language? Well, lots! How many of them are any good and are not trying to sell you something? Not many!

Well, for your education here are a list of some the good ones; the ones that helped me get to the stage I am now (So it’s their fault, not my procrastination!):

Top of the list are the many podcasts from Notes in Spanish. Thanks to Ben and Marina for some “cool” and really helpful stuff. Also the forum on their sister website, Notes from Spain. There are people on there who really know their cebollas.
Coffee Break Spanish, a series of 80, yes! 80 podcasts from the Radio lingua website – and now Showtime Spanish. Find both of the above on Itunes together with a bunch more language podcasts.
The Spanish bit of Wordreference.com. The explanations both on the main pages and on the forum have been invaluable
The Spanish section of About.com.

Most of the books are much of a muchness, but one that has really helped has been Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish.

Actually, books are key for learning vocabulary. But here I mean NOVELS. Read, read, and then read some more. Only use a dictionary if a word appears three times on the same page and if you can work out the meaning yourself. So many words are almost the same as they are in English. And remember, when you were learning your native language, you didn’t read Shakespeare – so don’t read Cervantes. Read comics and other childrens’ books until you progress.

Of course you can buy language lessons on Cds. I quite like the Michel Thomas courses and if you really want to spend money there are the Pimsleur Courses. Those last are sooo boring, repeat, repeat, repeat, boring, I have to steel myself before sitting down to what I feel will be a mind-numbing half hour lesson, but thirty minutes later I just feel I have got better.

But certainly not least, I have to thank some really mean and tough friends who didn’t want to go around with an idiot. They got me speaking – and listening. I still vandalise verbs and screw subjunctives and if the Spanish were as chauvinistic about their language as the French, they would have me shot, but if you want to learn Spanish, or any other language, get yourself some really horrible friends like those. They are worth their weight in oro.