March 04, 2008

That T-H Problem I Told You About


saks_fiff.jpg
Saks Fiff Avenue

This is from the Facebook group Sólo en México, which boasts an awesome collection of funny photos of stuff in Mexico. This photo was shared by PabloE Escobedo-Tavera.

It is a very good example of that problem a lot of Spanish speakers have with T-H sounds that I mentioned last month.

Posted by crispy at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2008

The T-H Transposition Error

As students of Spanish, English-speakers have a few shared errors that are so common that they get names, like yoísmo, the tendency to overuse the first person singular pronoun when it is not necessary. Spanish tends to omit pronouns because they are made redundant by the conjugated forms of verbs, but they are rarely omitted in English.

From a Spanish-speaker's perspective, English has a lot of funky ways to write various phonological units. That is, to make the sound like the "oo" in "tool," they use the letter U and only the letter U. In English, this sound appears in written contexts like "oo," "u," or even "ue." At the same time, these are not consistent, as the "oo" in "look" is not pronounced like the "oo" in "tool." The whole English pronunciation thing can be very, very difficult for people who learn it as a second language.

Vowels are hard enough. Silent letters are completely stupid, at least from a learner's point of view. Native speakers do not think twice about them because they grew up using them, but for a student of the language, they can cause lots of problems. In Spanish, the letter H is silent, like it is in many (but not all) cases in English. Native Spanish-speakers can grasp the idea that in words like "height" and "rhapsody," but they often get it confused with the TH digraph, which has four possible different sounds: the voiced dental fricative, as in "this," the voiceless dental fricative, as in "thing," with a silent H resulting in just a T sound, as in "Thailand," and a consonant cluster where both the T and the H are their own independent sounds, as in "lighthouse."

As a student of a foreign language myself, it isn't nice of me to laugh at mistakes others make with a language I lucked out in learning by growing up with it. Yet it's hard not to chuckle when it happens, no matter who you are. I'm sure even the most well-meaning and encouraging Spanish speakers have to laugh when a student of their language gets pregnant simply saying something incorrectly or making a social faux pas. Nobody thinks the person making that mistake is stupid, merely human and showing their native language bias in the interpretation of the secondary language. It is just being human to see the humor when someone else evidences their humanity. It shows us we're all in the same boat.

It is especially funny when someone is so human on a grand scale, like when there are mistakes on product packaging or on billboards or banners out in front of restaurants. Because English is seen as classy here for some reason that I have yet to fully grasp, businesses use it to give their establishment an air of refinement or something. I guess the same is done in the United States, where you see a roadside stand in Nebraska calling itself a "shoppe" of some sort, even though nobody in the midwest would normally write it that way. At least I hope they wouldn't.

One sees a lot of signs and labels here that are printed with some English, and it is particularly odd when they are half in Spanish and half in English. I don't mean they are bilingual and have the same information in Spanish and English both. I mean they will have the name of the product or store in English, and maybe slogan too. But then the descriptor of what the thing or place is (a carbonated beverage or a convenience store) is written in Spanish. Shawn tells me this is also done a lot in Japan, resulting in great hilarity.

Here in Mexico, Shawn and I never cease to be amused by the signs which reflect the Spanish-speaker's confusion with the TH digraph. Most recently, we got a chuckle out of:

Monday Nigth Football

Yet we are always amused by the appearance of:

yogurth

on a menu, although this seems to be a widely-accepted spelling for what I always learned was yogur.

One sees a lot of things that are advertised as 'ligth' (having fewer calories than the regular style), and I've even seen a sign advertising a dentist that works on 'teet.'

Unfortunately, I have not had my camera with me when I've seen a lot of these things; hopefully in the future, I can snap a few examples to share with you here.

Posted by crispy at 03:00 PM | Comments (2)

January 25, 2008

$#¡†load

There is a fascinating discussion going on at the WordReference Forums for Spanish/English General Vocabulary about the proper way to translate a popular vulgar expression for "a whole lot."

Thus far, the discussion continues for five pages. It is a great example to show how some translations better match the tone of their source material than others.

For example, montón, which is literally a 'heap' or 'pile,' conveys the meaning, and is what Spanish speakers would most likely say to express "a whole lot." However, un chingomadral is much better at getting across the feeling of the original English expression.

It is probably only a fun read for those who speak a little Spanish, and it's not recommended for those who might be offended by what my mother would call 'potty talk.'

Posted by crispy at 09:41 PM | Comments (3)

September 14, 2007

Subtitle and Subtext

I indulge myself with the electricity it takes to have the television on while I write. It's mostly at night, and it accomplishes the softest light we can achieve in the apartment, barring those adventurous nights when the electricity goes out for hours and we have to rely on a bunch of candles. I often turn the sound down because Shawn is asleep. When I get deeply involved in what I'm writing - thinking about it, looking up references, checking the spelling, far too infrequently proofreading - I fail to look at the television for long periods of time. The darkness and the quiet that we get here throughout the wee hours gives an enveloping shell to my writing environment that helps me get the black on the page.

At times my writing involves my talking to myself in an empty room or an otherwise vacant apartment. After hours though, I try to keep any such conversations down to a minimal whisper, like I'm trying to impress myself in a dark corner booth of a dim lounge over a Scotch with my saucy reparté. Usually, it's a terribly unpolished pick-up, and I'm not having any of it. It's disheartening to be both flailing around uselessly in pathetic lines as you listen to how they make you sound like a corny hack. I can avoid that by turning off the volume and thinking the lines.

When I'm writing with the volume on the television turned up and I say what I'm writing or what I'm thinking, the program or commercial on television will chime in at a frighteningly appropriate moment with something amazingly prescient or beautifully non sequitur. When it is turned down, the Spanish-language programming doles this out in visual form, but programming originally done in English with subtitles in Spanish also gives it to me with silent words, mouthed like inaudible whispers.

Who can resist listening to a whisper? It demands that you listen. If it is intended for you, it often relates information of the utmost importance or maybe an offer of extremely titilating interest. If it is not intended for you, you feel like you're in on something. Delicious double entenres can be used in both spoken and written language. In subtitles it happens both ways: unintentionally funny words get used from time to time, and at times, the subtitle puts the tongue in the wrong cheek and blows the humor of a double entendre that is intended in the original. Sometimes it's amusing.

Last night, Diamonds are Forever was on one of the movie channels as I worked. I looked up at the end of the film, after James has saved the day and Jill Saint John has bounced herself voluptuously into the hearts of all the straight men in the audience with her inpired machine-gun and bikini bit, to catch a scene featuring the straight-as-Smithers assassins Misters Wint and Kidd. Wint and Kidd play the role of the villains (like Jaws in Moonraker), who come back in a comedic coda to tie up their not having been neatly dispatched through the carnage of the final fight scene. True to form, this mincing murder machine is trying to kill James Bond again, even though Blofeld is out of the picture and it is not clear that they have any motive other than their commitment to the bit.

The sequence opens with Bond and Tiffany Case Jones jousting with wordplay on the balcony of a luxury liner stateroom when they are interrupted by a knock at the door. Mister Wint and Mister Kidd are disguised as stewards, bringing an elegant gourmet room service meal that they claim is with the compliments of the rich Texan that James saved earlier. Mr. Wint details the menu while Mr. Kidd does theatrical reveals of each dish as it is detailed. For desert, they have a bombe suprise (pronounced like "BOMB-bh soo-PREEZ"), which, Mr. Wint briefly exposes to the audience as a fake, with a time bomb hidden inside. Cute.

Yet the Spanish subtitles render "And for dessert...bombe suprise" as:

Para el postre...un explosivo sorpresa.

or "For desert...a suprise explosive."

So much for subtlety.

Posted by crispy at 02:16 AM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2007

el soplón

I was reading the subtitles in Los Tres Huastecos and the word soplón was used to falsely describe an average José that everyone liked, justifying his being killed by El Coyote, a wild outlaw, whose true identity was unknown. I looked the word up, and I read:

soplón,-ona m,f fam (chivato) grass, informer
(acusica) sneak, telltale

Grass? I'd never heard the word 'grass' used as a synonym for 'informer.' But there among the meanings of 'grass' that I do know, was this British slang sense of the word, in Merriam-Webster:

2. slang British : inform 2 — often used with on

Of course, this uses the word 'grass' as a verb. It's not listed in the entry for the word's sense as a noun. In the Mexican film, the subtitles used it as a noun, as in, "He was a drunk and a grass."

The subtitles could be taking this wrong, or my dictionary might be less than exhaustive. I'm not so concerned with that. I just think it's interesting that in studying and learning Spanish, I often learn things about English that I never knew before.

It might be the one thing with which I agree with President Bush: it's good to study a foreign language!

Posted by crispy at 04:26 AM | Comments (1)

May 08, 2007

El tamaño

From Charles:

Q: What's the difference between lástima and lastima?
A: The size.

Posted by crispy at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2007

Spanish Immersion

There is no experience that teaches you a language better than immersion, and living where that language is spoken as the primary language is the best way to accomplish that. Living in a country where the primary language is not the same as yours is far from easy though, and even if you can swing that, you might be surprised how often it can be difficult to accomplish immersion in the language of that place.

There are a few things that are universal, no matter what native language, foreign language and country are involved. These things are helpful to bear in mind even if you originally speak Farsi and are going to learn Albanian while living in Kosovo.

Do not spend all your time with your peers.

If you have come in a group from your home country, or have met up with a bunch of people from there after you arrive, try to reach an agreement that you will not speak in your native language. That is trickier than it sounds because the tendency is to 'fall back' on your native language when you encounter difficulty in relating to each other in the second language. If a wide range of capabilities exist between the members of your group, it becomes difficult because the advanced speakers get tired of waiting for five minutes to understand one thought finally generated by a lesser-advanced speaker. That brings us to the next point.

Be sensitive to your status as a learner within their culture.

We find that speaking even a little Spanish gets you a lot of credit here in Mexico, as opposed to speaking a little English the United States. There, all too often, people learning English are given no credit for their attempts to speak the language and are often told, "Learn English! You're in America." No, people in the United States do not seem to be all that excited to help those learning English in their efforts, feeling that everyone that comes to the country should be fluent before touching that sacred ground.

In contrast, in Mexico, people are much more patient with gringos (and others) trying to learn Spanish, and they will often try to help you by gently correcting you or offering you pointers. However, it would be wrong to paint all Mexicans as jovial folk that are only too delighted to help Gringo figure out his por and his para.

Often, you will get a taste of what those learning English have to go through in the United States, with Mexicans that are not amused by your broken Spanish and the fact that they do not understand what you are trying to say. They will be obviously annoyed and angry that you are wasting their time. I have found that in some cases, even though I can probably deal with a situation okay, it is better to ask a friend along that is more fluent than I am, so that if this situation comes up, I have someone there to help out (or even take over for me) if I become flustered.

This will most often happen when you get off the beaten track trampled by tourists to the country, and deal with the more mundane things that you have to do when you stay for an extended period of time: paying the gas bill, trying to get a particular kind of medicine at the pharmacy or riding on the bus. ¡Ay! Riding on the bus... From my experience, that's where you will find Mexicans on their worst behavior, but that's a topic for another entry.

Yet it does help illustrate my point. On the bus, people are busy doing the most mundane of daily chores, doing one of the more unpleasant things they must do during the day to just get along. In situations like that, the foreign language learner abroad should be prepared to find native speakers less helpful. I have run into this in places where usually I am treated kindly despite my language difficulties, like at the grocery store down the street or the music store in the mall. Who knows what kind of a day the person you are dealing with has had by the time you get to them? You may be the last straw of a pile that has been building up on their back all day, or even weeks.

Whenever possible, try to practice your conversation with people that are in situations where they are not a lot of pressure to get something done or to get somewhere quickly. Parties, for example, are more likely to have people willing to take the time to help you, than are places like the bureaucratic office that deals with drivers' licenses.

Sometimes it is not appropriate to talk at all.

We have no car down here, so we take a lot of cabs. In general, when riding with others, Shawn prefers to sit in the front seat and I tend to prefer sitting in the back. This works out for us with taxis, because I put Shawn in charge of dealing with the taxi drivers when we first moved down here, so that he could have some relatively consistent, basic interaction with people for which he could practice in advance. He would follow a basic routine, approaching the taxi driver, asking if they were available, asking them if their meter worked, giving the street and number, and as necessary, detailing any local landmarks.

I am very pleased that a year later, he has improved so much that he usually engages the cab driver in pleasant small talk on a number of things, and he can even respond to novel conversations initiated by the drivers themselves. With this, he occasionaly needs help, and in those cases, I can chime in from the back seat. However, it is often a delight to just sit back and enjoy the view, while Shawn handles the chit-chat about the inevitable questions: where we are from, how long we will be visiting, why we prefer living here, etc.

Yet there are times when the cab driver really is not in a mood to be chatty, or maybe that particular driver never feels like chatting. A good sign is when they do not answer the second or third time that you ask them, "¿Cómo está?" or when their response to your questions or comments is to turn up the radio to a conversation-suffocating volume. That is when maybe you should sit back and just relax, respecting the fact that silence can be golden.

Obviously there are other times where it is not appropriate to talk, like during the middle of a film, even if you are doing it in the local language. Those things tend to be more universal, and you will know when to keep your trap shut then. Yet just bear in mind that there are situations that you get used to having be 'talking situations,' and once in a while, people will not agree with your assessment. Do not be hurt or offended by this.

Be careful! Even native speakers make mistakes.

I had some great teachers. I had teachers from different countries where Spanish was spoken and some countries are more strict about their Spanish than others. Not that they will turn you away from the border if you use the direct object pronoun where you should use the indirect object pronoun, but there are places where such 'modifications in everyday usage' are more culturally accepted than they are in others.

In Mexico, I hear native speakers make mistakes. I hear them put plural verbs with singular nouns or use the wrong pronouns. This takes very careful listening, but it also takes some tactful handling. Nobody likes a language snob, so you do not want to make a big deal of that kind of thing if it happens. Your best bet is to remember what you heard, and then later confirm whether your suspicion that the person said something incorrectly is right or not.

I have, on a couple of occasions, with cute guys that are very excited to help me practice my Spanish (that's really sexy, by the way folks), corrected them by asking (in Spanish), "Wait - don't you mean...." with a sly smile. That usually gets them to laugh, smile and correct themselves, and it gives me the chance to smile back and say (in Spanish), "Don't worry about it! English speakers make a very similar mistake all the time..."

Mexicans enjoy a little teasing, so this can be a good way to get them to laugh at themselves. And Mexican guys can be so cute when they smile. Yet again, that is probably best kept for a different entry.

The thing that bugs me most about Mexican Spanish is that they all (around here anyway) seem to make decades plural, as we do in English. According to my upbringing, this is the worst of Spanish gaffes. You say los sesenta (literally in English, "the seventy") and NOT what they say here, "los sesentas. This drives me nuts. I can hardly hold my tongue when I hear it, but unless I am conversing with someone I know very well, I do not say anything. Not only is it rude, but the person is going to turn to a nearby native speaker and ask, "Hey, it's los sesentas, not los sesenta, right?" (in Spanish), and of course she will agree, making you now look like a rude jackass that does not know what he is talking about.

People will presume you speak better than you do.

It is nice when you get good enough that you can achieve some conversational flow. It first starts to happen around subjects that you talk about a lot, like with the cab drivers that ask the same basic things of gringo tourists. Then you start to have conversations at parties that start off similarly (Where are you from? How long will you stay?), and ones competence in answering those questions implies that you have a pretty darn good grasp of the language. People will compliment you on how well you speak, and it will go to your head a bit before you come crashing down when they start talking faster, about things like avant-garde baking and its relation to domestic stocking production and why that is the number one criteria for voters that prefer to bathe themselves in kneecaps. Or at least that is what it suddenly seems they are talking about.

This will happen to you eventually once you are immersed long enough in a culture, so be ready with a little speech to tell people that while you may have mastered certain basic things, you are completely lost about what they have just said. It does not pay to act like you know what people are saying when you really have no idea. It is one thing to try and fill in the blanks with context, but you will know when you hit the point that you are completely lost when all of a sudden the person talking to you is waiting for a response and you are still trying to figure out if they are talking about bats or tariffs or short-shorts.

Even people that correct you will not always correct you.

Conversation in real life is not always about speaking correctly. It is about communication, and communication relies on many different aspects besides just proper grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. All that is required for communication to take place is that one person tries to express something to another, and the other person has some understanding of it. Of course, the accuracy of the understanding on the part of the recipient will vary with many different factors, but often ideas are communicated sufficiently without all the component parts of the expression being performed accurately. In other words, sometimes people understand what you are talking about even when you make a lot of mistakes in saying it.

Therefore, when you are involved in a conversation in a foreign language, you may make a lot of mistakes that the native speakers with whom you are talking do not correct for you. This is especially true if they have a lot of exposure to people from your native land that speak the same native language as you do and tend to make the same exact mistakes you do. This happens for English speakers a lot in Mexico (and I suspect in Spain), because they tend to be exposed to a lot of English speakers. If you make the mistake of saying you were really embarazada when your skirt blew off when that strong wind hit, people may not tell you that what you actually just said you were pregnant when the wind came along. They know that English speakers make that mistake a lot, even if they do not know it is because for us, the word "embarrassed" is a false cognate.

It is more fun for native speakers to have a conversation with someone learning their language than it is for them to play the role of a teacher and correct them on every single mistake. It is more fun for you too, but there will be times where you later realize mistakes you made in talking to people, and belive me, you will be plenty embarazada. Do not let it get to you. Just try to figure out a way to remember the right way to say it, and try to do it right the next time.

Immersion is not limited to conversation.

I have been told on a couple of occasions here that my pronunciation is my strongest point when it comes to Spanish. (God knows it's not my conjugation.) I think a big reason for this is that, even though I do not get out and about all the time, I tend to watch TV and listen to music that is in Spanish, even when I have no idea as to what is being said. We are lucky to have many channels that broadcast old Mexican films from the 50s and 60s here, and I love to watch them for the way they look, even if I cannot understand everything going on. I also love old Mexican music, so I will often put on some Trio Los Panchos while I am cleaning the house or cooking lunch.

The point here is this: you can learn a lot from just hearing the foreign language, even if you are not listening to it. A whole different kind of learning takes place when you are following along, trying to figure out the words and understand their relation to each other. Yet even if you are mindlessly making up a shopping list while you have Molotov on in the background, that mere exposure can help you.

I do not have any scientific evidence to back this up, but I think it really does help. Plus, you get cultural exposure that is also good to have. All of a sudden one day, you realize that you know that song on the radio, or you hear a voice coming from the TV and without looking up, you know it is María Félix. This is a kind of cultural learning that really enriches your language learning because you can start talking about the stuff that people speaking the foreign language actually talk about.

Mexico is a splendid, living example that language has deep historic roots that shape its development. A proper study of Mexico and her history is integral to your coursework so that you can classify words that have been integrated into what is considered Spanish (or at least acceptable in daily use of Spanish in Mexico). It is a big part of what makes Mexican Spanish different from all the other forms.

Mexican Spanish is crazy different from other forms of Spanish.

If at least to the extent that it merits its own phrasebooks and dictionaries, Mexican Spanish differs from Spanish used in Spain as well as Latin American Spanish. Even within the country it varies, as Spanish spoken in the Yucután incorporates sounds and words from Mayan, making it much different from the Spanish spoken everywhere else. In Veracruz, they pronounce words more like Spanish-speakers of the Caribbean. Near the border with Guatemala, they supposedly even use el voseo.

Here I tend to notice mostly the influence of Náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs, mostly in terms of vocabulary.

This is not to say that other countries do not have indigenous influences or regional variations, but the ones present in Mexico are unique. If you intend to work on your Spanish here in Mexico, you will quickly notice a lot of things that make it different from the general Spanish taught in classrooms.

Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios, y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos.

In my Spanish classes in the United States, we were frequently told that we would see used words that were not really Spanish, but rather English loanwords that have crept into Spanish. Depending on who was telling us about it, the feeling about this ranged from respect for the dynamic nature of language to absolute disgust.

Mexico might well be the biggest violator, being so near the United States and getting so much media from there. For example, we do not alquiler our apartment, we rentar it. If you return something to a store, you need to bring along your ticket, because a recibo is something else. And if you need to go up several stories and do not want to take the stairs, you would take the elevador not the ascensor (again, that means something else here). This is not to say these words are wrong, but just that they have been assimilated into Mexican Spanish in the strange ways these things work with languages.

Whether or not you bristle when you hear it, you should get used to hearing versions of words in Mexican Spanish that sound more similar to their English counterparts than the words you learned in Spanish class. On occasion, with certain words, the forms that are not common in Mexico will still be understood, but you cannot really count on that always being the case everywhere.

The formal is too formal.

Another thing I was taught in school was to always use the formal form of address in certain situations. With new acquaintances, I would tend to use the formal address until it was either ridiculous to do so or the other person told me that I could use informal address. With certain people, like teachers or older people, I would use it always.

That is not done in Mexico. In fact, it is considered strange and verging on rude to use the formal address with most people. In many situations, people will walk up to you and use the informal form of address right off the bat.

The thing that bugs me most about it is that advertisements always use informal address, and for some reason, that just drives me nuts.

Posted by crispy at 06:19 PM | Comments (6)

December 02, 2006

Landing the Plane

I'm at a party last night, and a strikingly handsome and charming Sergio is telling me about how he used to go into work a little early each day to get in a little research on the bar's diverse tequila offerings. The boss was not the type that would see this as human capital improvement that would benefit his clientele, so Sergio had to be careful not to be obviously boozed up when the boss arrived.

Toward this end, he would eat a little bread (pancito) after the drinks in an effort to sober himself up. He explained that in Spanish, this is referred to as 'bajar el avión,' or 'to land the plane.'

In the immortal words of Lisa Simpson, "Can't talk. Coming down."

Posted by crispy at 06:39 PM | Comments (1)

November 29, 2006

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Another thing I learned last weekend. Mexicans, at least (maybe this is common to hispanohablantes), differentiate when indicating with their hands the size of things that are:

The first, heights of people, is demonstrated with the index finger extended and the rest of the hand closed. It's like you're making a "we're number one" gesture, and then locating it in space to show how tall someone is. The finger is held vertically, not horizontally.

For animals, height is demonstrated by the open hand, with the fingers together. The palm of the hand is like a vertical axis, with the palm facing the side, not facing up or down. The first one seems strange to me, but this one seems downright awkward.

For things, the same hand shape is used and held with the palm facing down, generally as we gringos would tend to indicate the height of any thing, animate or inanimate, person or animal.

Posted by crispy at 06:00 AM | Comments (3)

November 28, 2006

Mole Poblano

I learned so many things over our Thanksgiving intercambio de culturas to share with you, but the first is going to be this way that Mexicans refer to their diverse ethnic mixture.

First, you have to know what mole poblano is. A brief description is that it's a very complex sauce made from 10-20 ingredients, including chiles and chocolate. A more involved description might tell that it was allegedly created by a nun for a visiting bishop to her city of Puebla, where the people are refered to as poblanos and where the well-known Battle of Puebla took place (the reason cinco de mayo is celebrated). This sauce is traditionally served with turkey (mole poblano de guajalote, the national dish of Mexico), but I can highly recommend a vegetarian version that I've enjoyed at Casa Fuerte in Tlaquepaque that is kind of a cheese enchilada in mole poblano.

As interesting as the history and diverse availability of mole poblano is, it is the complexity of the sauce that is used to give a sense of la raza here in Mexico. Most people are aware of the mixing of the indigenous folks with the Spanish that went on, but the blood of Mexicans has also been refined by other groups (French, Irish, German, Chinese, etc.) throughout the history of the country, with each group having its own reason for coming to and staying in Mexico. The United States might be referred to as a "melting pot," due to its multiethnic nature, but it's really more like a Whitman's Sampler in comparison to Mexico. In the United States, you have the Italian section of town, the Chinese district, the Irish neighborhood. Here, people from all these different backgrounds really did "melt together" to form a more consistent mix.

It is interesting to note that of the most of the ingredients of mole poblano de guajalote, besides chili, chocolate and turkey, are not indigenous, although that is not true of all the many different types of moles, such as the famous versions associated with Oaxaca, like amarillo, colorado or negro.

Posted by crispy at 11:57 AM | Comments (1)

October 23, 2006

You Say Tomato and I Say Náhuatl

Once in a while, the United States as a whole, or maybe just one of her constituent states, erupts in meaningless controversy trying to enshrine English as the official language.

Nothing has stressed to me the importance of knowing the actual language of a place over the official language more than living in Mexico, in the state of Jalisco. We have an unusual collection of lexical oddities, regional foods and musical styles that are unique to this place only, the State of Jalisco. People here are really proud of their regional quirks and specialties.

Accordingly, the politics of the Republic are being updated to promote regional and cultural diversity of the assembled states. The Mexican Congress passed a law In 2003 called the 'General Law of linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples' which states that Spanish and the indigenous languages are "national languages" due to their historical background and "have the same validity in their territory, location and context." This in no way changes the fact that Spanish is the dominant language of Mexico, but it does allow native peoples certain rights previously denied by law, such as being able to translate the national anthem into something more meaningful for them.

It also recognizes that in modern-day Mexico, the Indigenous language of Náhuatl is important. One sees it all over the place, in place names (like Mazatlan, Oaxaca and even Mexico) as well as the names of many common, everyday things. And as much as English-only advocates in the United States might cringe to think about it, they also use some Náhuatl on a regular basis too, like when they talk about that confusing fruit/vegetable, the tomato.

At a social gathering a while ago, someone asked what it was about a tomato that actually made it a fruit and not a vegetable. I responded that it was something about the seeds being on the inside. That lead to the comment that the seeds are on the insides of of a zucchini too, but we don't call it a fruit. That is true, I thought, and I put it in the back of my mind to look up later: why is it then that a tomato is actually a fruit and not a vegetable?

Last night, while fixing Shawn's lunch for today (which interestingly enough did not involve a single tomato), I remembered this debate and decided to look it up in the Wikipedia, where these things were clarified. In short, the tomato is a fruit because the part we eat is the ovary, containing the seeds within it. It is true that a zucchini also has this going on, but technically, it's a fruit too. A lot of things are fruits that we think of as vegetables: eggplants, pumpkins, chiles, etc. As an interesting side note to this, because in 1887, a tariff was put on vegetables and not fruits, the U.S. Supreme Court decided (Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304) that for legal purposes, foods would be classified by their use not by their scientific classifications, and since a tomato was eaten with dinner and not with dessert, it was a vegetable and not a fruit, and therefore (surprise!) was subject to the payment of duties.

Yet another interesting side note is that tomatoes originated on the west coast of South America. It is part of the Nightshade family, and while eventually cultivated by the Spanish after their arrival in the New World, the tomato has now and again been regarded as being poisonous. American Indians did not cultivate it as a food before the arrival of the Spanish, but the Spanish brought it back to Europe. Before Italy fell in love with it, they avoided it as poisonous and used it only as a decorative plant. They loosened up a bit when they saw that the Spaniards were not dying from eating tomatoes, and look what they've done with it since. There's even a rumor that a British secret agent tried to kill George Washington by feeding him a dish laced with tomatoes. [source]

So the indigenous peoples of the Americas aren't why we eat the tomato; that distinction belongs to the Spanish. But they are the reason we call it what we call it, becuase the Náhuatl word for tomato is tomatl. Today in modern-day Mexico, they call it a jitomate. Oddly enough, they refer to a green tomato as a tomate; in other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, like Colombia, the red kind is a tomate.

The truth of the matter is, it should not come as a surprise that Náhuatl words are used in the United States as well as Mexico. There are many foods that are indigenous to this hemisphere, and obviously their first names came from indigenous people. Perhaps the best known (and loved) of these is chocolate, but there are several others. As these foods gained popularity throughout the world, their Náhuatl names were carried with them, even if slightly altered from the original form.

Furthermore, Náhuatl, the second most-used language in Mexico, is part of the Uto-Aztecan group, a Native American linguistic family which is in turn one of the largest in the Americas. It's range goes from Oregon south through Mexico. The Uto-Aztecan languages are believed to have originated in what is now the American Southwest: Arizona or New Mexico. (Interestingly, Navajo is not one of the Uto-Aztecan languages; it belongs to the Na-Dené family.) There are 1.5 speakers of one Náhuatl dialect or another. Although no dialect matches Classical Náhuatl, it is believed that the Náhuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico is the most similar to it.

To me, this Náhuatl influence on the Spanish of Mexico is tricky. There are names for places and things here that seem like long clusters of consonates with an occasional vowel thrown in, and they pop up like speed bumps in newspaper articles, news broadcasts and historical accounts. Teocuitlatlan , Acaxochitlan, Mihuiittilmoyoccuitlantonpicixochitl - try saying those ten times fast.

Náhuatl is part of the language of Mexico. There are at least 60 others, all of them recognized by the government as equally valid. This doesn't threaten Spanish speakers; they've been dominating the indigenous cultures here for nearly 500 years and that's not going to change any time soon. By allowing these minority languages and cultures legal recognition, the dominant culture is not diminuished. It simply recognizes the historical and present-day reality that it is one of many diverse cultures in Mexico, and instead of trying to fight it and force everybody into one heterogenous mass, they respect and groove on it.

Posted by crispy at 12:47 AM | Comments (2)

August 07, 2006

Mexicanos, al grito de guerra

I have not discussed the national anthem of Mexico, or as it's called here, El Himno Nacional Mexicano. It's got a perky melody and there is an interesting story behind it, but the words are ridiculously militaristic for modern-day Mexico.

It makes sense at first, considering the words were written in 1853, shortly after the war with the United States (1846–1848). Mexico lost over 500,000 square miles of their territory in this war (Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, and sections of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming), which was nearly half of the country.

At the time, Antonio López de Santa Anna was president of Mexico. Beyond his famous victory at the Alamo (remember that?), Santa Anna was a larger-than-life character that kicked Spanish butt, overthrew Mexican emperor Agustín de Iturbide so that Mexico could be a republic, and fought valiently against the French in the Pastry War.

He was a hero on numerous occasions, but his popularity was always short-lived. Every time he did something that made people like him, he did something that made people hate him. After the the Alamo, at the Battle of San Jacinto, his troops were ambushed by Sam Houston's troops and thoroughly trounced. Six hundred of the surprised soldiers were killed and over seven hundred taken prisoner in just twenty minutes. Santa Ana was not even present at the battle, but was captured the following day, and shortly thereafter signed the Treaties of Velasco which gave the Texas territory away but spared his life. Mexicans were not happy about this, declaring that Santa Anna was no longer president and therefore the treaties he signed were not valid.

He regained popularity through his bravery in the Pastry War, and was asked to again take the reigns of the country after President Anastasio Bustamante was deposed. The country was bankrupt at this point, having endured two wars and facing internal rebellion. He raised taxes, declared publication of materials critical of his regime to be illegal and threw dissenters in jail. In what was considered his ultimate betrayal of his country, he sold nearly half the territory of the country off to the United States. This is the notorious act for which he is remembered in Mexico today.

He delighted in his status as a great Mexican hero, and was always doing whatever it took to maintain his perception as the modest defender of the nation. In one of his efforts to gain favor with the Mexican public, he announced a contest in November of 1853 for a patriotic composition that would become the Mexican national anthem.

Francisco González Bocanegra didn't have any interest in entering, but penned an entry after his fiancée locked him in a bedroom and refused to let him out until he completed one. It won by unanimous vote and was set to a composition by Spanish-born composer Jaime Nunó entitled "Díos y libertad."

The entire song, accepted as official on 16 September (Mexico's Independence Day) of 1854, consists of 10 stanzas, all overwrought with nationalistic sentimentality, and at times, violence and gore. In 1943, President Manuel Ávila Camacho signed an order making the official version consist of only the chorus, first stanza, fifth stanza, sixth stanza and tenth stanza. Most often when you hear it, it has been reduced even further to be the chorus, first stanza, the chorus, tenth stanza and the chorus (or, at sporting events, only the chorus, first stanza and the chorus).

The last war in which Mexico was involved was World War II. Because corrupt, violent and authoritarian governments (as well as several corrupt, violent and authoritarian rebel movements) have plagued Latin American countries, the general sentiment of the people is that the shedding of blood for patriotic ideals is ultimately a pointless waste of life. Movements are afoot in several countries to hold governments and politicians accountable for their "disappearing" thousands of political dissidents, so the idea that "heaven has given [the state] a soldier in every son" is a bit out of date.

There are some unusual laws surrounding the Himno Nacional also. Like you can be fined for singing it incorrectly.

The law dealing with the proper use of the Mexican national anthem is Chapter 5 of the Ley sobre el Escudo, la Bandera y el Himno Nacionales. It sets forth that the anthem must be played at the beginning and end of any broadcast day for radio and television, and when played on television, the flag must also be shown at the same time. Yet there are more interesting provisions, such as those that state that the anthem cannot be sung for commercial or promotional use, that it can only be used at acts of an official, civic, cultural, scholastic or sporting nature, that it can only be played once within the same ceremony, and that if the anthem is played outside of Mexico, the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores must grant permission for its use and ensure that it's not being played for commercial purposes.

It took the government until 2005 to officially permit the anthem to be translated into some of the indigenous languages of Mexico, such as Mixteco, Maya and Nahuatl.

Below follows the entire set of lyrics in Spanish, and then the translation into English of the current official version.

Pick a version in MP3 format and sing along! Just don't do it in public where it could be considered a performance.



Coro 

  Mexicanos al grito de guerra 

  el acero aprestad y el bridón.

  Y retiemble en su centro la tierra,

  al sonoro rugir del cañón.



Estrofa I 

  Ciña ¡oh Patria! tus sienes de oliva

  de la paz el arcángel divino, 

  que en el cielo tu eterno destino 

  por el dedo de Dios se escribió. 

  Mas si osare un extraño enemigo 

  profanar con sus plantas tu suelo, 

  piensa ¡oh Patria querida! que el cielo 

  un soldado en cada hijo te dio.



Estrofa II 

  En sangrientos combates los viste 

  por tu amor palpitando sus senos, 

  arrostrar la metralla serenos, 

  y la muerte o la gloria buscar. 

  Si el recuerdo de antiguas hazañas 

  de tus hijos inflama la mente, 

  los recuerdos del triunfo tu frente, 

  volverán inmortales a ornar.



Estrofa III 

  Como al golpe del rayo la encina, 

  se derrumba hasta el hondo torrente, 

  la discordia vencida, impotente, 

  a los pies del arcángel cayó. 

  Ya no más, de tus hijos la sangre, 

  se derrame en contienda de hermanos; 

  sólo encuentre el acero en sus manos 

  quien tu nombre sagrado insultó.



Estrofa IV 

  Del guerrero inmortal de Zempoala 

  te defiende la espada terrible, 

  y sostiene su brazo invencible, 

  tu sagrado pendón tricolor. 

  Él será del feliz mexicano 

  en la paz y en la guerra el caudillo, 

  porque él supo sus armas de brillo 

  circundar en los campos de honor.



Estrofa V 

  Guerra, guerra sin tregua al que intente 

  de la Patria manchar los blasones, 

  Guerra, guerra, los patrios pendones 

  en las olas de sangre empapad. 

  Guerra, guerra. En el monte, en el valle, 

  los cañones horrísonos truenen, 

  y los ecos sonoros resuenen 

  con las voces de ¡Unión! ¡Libertad!



Estrofa VI 

  Antes, Patria, que inermes tus hijos, 

  bajo el yugo su cuello dobleguen, 

  tus campiñas con sangre se rieguen, 

  sobre sangre se estampe su pie. 

  Y los templos, palacios y torres 

  se derrumben con hórrido estruendo, 

  y sus ruinas existan diciendo: 

  De mil héroes la Patria aquí fue.



Estrofa VII 

  Si a la lid contra hueste enemiga, 

  nos convoca la trompa guerrera, 

  de Iturbide la sacra bandera, 

  mexicanos, valientes seguid. 

  Y a los fieles bridones les sirvan 

  las vencidas enseñas de alfombra; 

  los laureles del triunfo den sombra 

  a la frente del Bravo Adalid.



Estrofa VIII 

  Vuelva altivo a los patrios hogares, 

  el guerrero a cantar su victoria, 

  ostentando las palmas de gloria 

  que supiera en la lid conquistar. 

  Tornaránse sus lauros sangrientos 

  en guirnaldas de mirtos y rosas, 

  que el amor de las hijas y esposas, 

  también sabe a los bravos premiar.



Estrofa IX 

  Y el que al golpe de ardiente metralla, 

  de la Patria en las aras sucumba, 

  obtendrá en recompensa una tumba 

  donde brille, de gloria, la luz. 

  Y, de Iguala, la enseña querida 

  a su espada sangrienta enlazada, 

  de laurel inmortal coronada, 

  formará de su fosa una cruz. 



Estrofa X 

  ¡Patria, Patria! tus hijos te juran 

  exhalar en tus aras su aliento, 

  si el clarín, con su bélico acento, 

  los convoca a lidiar con valor. 

  ¡Para ti las guirnaldas de oliva! 

  ¡Un recuerdo para ellos de gloria! 

  ¡Un laurel para ti de victoria! 

  ¡Un sepulcro para ellos de honor!



==

Chorus

  Mexicans, at the cry of war,

  prepare the steel and the steed,

  and may the earth shake at its core

  to the resounding roar of the cannon.



Stanza I

  Gird, oh country, your brow with olive

  the divine archangel of peace, 

  for your eternal destiny was written

  in the heavens by the hand of God.

  But if some strange enemy should dare

  to profane your ground with his step,

  think, oh beloved country, that heaven 

  has given you a soldier in every son.



Stanza V

  War, war without truce to any who dare

  to tarnish the country's coat-of-arms!

  War, war! Take the national pennants

  and soak them in waves of blood.

  War, war! In the mountain, in the valley,

  the cannons thunder in horrid unison

  and the resonant echoes

  cry out union, liberty!



Stanza VI

  Oh country, ere your children

  defenseless bend their neck to the yoke,

  may your fields be watered with blood,

  may they trod upon blood.

  And may your temples, palaces and towers

  collapse with horrid clamor,

  and their ruins live on to say:

  This land belonged to a thousand heroes.



Stanza X

  Oh, country, country, your children swear

  to breathe their last in your honor,

  if the trumpet with warlike accent

  should call them to fight with courage.

  For you the olive branches!

  A memory for them of glory!

  A laurel of victory for you!

  For them a tomb with honor!

Posted by crispy at 12:02 AM | Comments (2)

June 19, 2006

When is a bolillo not a bolillo?

Not all bolillos are created equally, I recently leared from neighbor Alberto. There is a special type of bolillo made here in Guadalajara...

Wait, wait, wait. You don't know what a bolillo is?!

Okay, a bolillo is similar to french bread, and is made with wheat flour. Usually, it's bleached flour, but you can get delicious bolios at the pan integral (whole wheat) bakeries also.

Oh yeah, in Mexico, you often have bakeries that make just whole wheat things, including whole wheat raised, frosted donuts.

The bolillo is usually about five to seven inches long, has tapered ends making it oval in shape, and is cut across the top before baking to give it a slightly irregular surface and a little more crust.

Oh, that's right. I should have mentioned before that the bolillo is crusty on the outside and very soft on the inside. That's what makes it like french bread.

It's used to make tortas, the most well-known around here being tortas ahogadas. If you don't know Spanish, 'ahogadas' means 'drowned.'

I forget that most Mexican food as represented around the world doesn't include tortas, so maybe I should explain those too. Tortas are sandwiches, somewhat comparable to submarine sandwiches, hoagies, poor boys and grinders. Mexicans are not all that big on the miscellaneous vegetables though, so you often get just meat, bread and some kind of sauce. In the torta ahogada, the sauce is on the outside of the whole thing, like a 'smothered burrito.'

Still with me?

The torta ahogada is fried pork, onions and beans (but honestly, it's 99% pork) stuffed into a bolillo, then 'drowned' in a spicy tomato and chile sauce. It is known as a specialty of Guadalajara, and they are sold everywhere - in restaurants, from street vendors, in loncherías...

Ah, hold on. That is something a little strange. Usually it's people from Mexico City (defeños, chilangos) that call sandwiches on bolillos 'tortas.' It's usually not called a torta here, but rather, a lonche. That's not 100% solid; a lot of people are going to call a turkey sandwich a torta de pavo, but you see lonche used around here just as much if not more than torta, except when you're talking about tortas ahogadas. It's never called a lonche ahogado. It's always a torta ahogada.

Yet I stray from my point, although it is important to bear all that in mind for understanding my point.

The point is, I learned recently from Alberto that the type of bolillo used in Guadalajara and surrounding environs is a special type of bolillo called a birote. Birotes are particular to Guadalajara, and are perhaps best described as sort of a sourdough bolillo. I don't know the exact difference between the two, but the birote tastes slightly sour, like a light sourdough. People here describe them as salados when you go to buy them and they think that as a non-native tapatio you don't realize the difference. However, they're not called bolillos salados, they're called birotes. Well, except on the little labels that the bakery at the supermarket sticks on the bags, in which case, then they're just called bolillos.

Combining all that information then, we see that a lonche is usually going to be made with a birote, and a torta is going to be made with plain bolillo.

Of course, that is apart from the torta ahogada, the specialty of Guadalajara, made on birote, yet called a torta all the same.

Oh, and I should mention that there's another regional type of bolillo that's from Mexico City and is called telera, but that's a topic for an entirely different entry.

More on Birote, en español.

Posted by crispy at 08:27 AM | Comments (6)

May 16, 2006

Razor Blades

We needed to buy blades for our razor, the type with several blades encapsulated in a plastic "cartridge." In looking up razor in wordreference.com, they give two listings for the compound noun, "razor blade:" hoja de afeitar and nava de rasurar.

One of Shawn's students pointed out that hoja de afeitar means the disposable blades for what we call "safety razors" and nava de rasurar means the old-style "straight razor." The proper word for what we wanted, at least in Mexico, is rastrillo, which wordreference.com translates to English as "rake," or "flea market."

Posted by crispy at 02:59 PM | Comments (1)

April 06, 2006

Breed Your Own Housekeeper!

Although you'll find it listed in the dictionary as an appropriate translation for the word 'maid,' you do not want to call the woman that cleans your house una criada. At least not in Mexico.

I don't know if it's an issue between the Spanish used in Spain and the New World, or if criada just has negative connotations only in Mexico.

There are lots of words for different kinds of maids that you'll find in the dictionary, but the dictionary usually does not go into sufficient detail to explain the difference between the terms. Here in Mexico, a maid at a hotel (that fixes up your recamara bedroom, in Latin America) is una camarista. You'll also see camarera for a hotel maid, although I don't think that term is often used in Mexico.

However, Joseph and Larry told us last night that criada implies that the woman is your slave, and in fact, the term is more offensive to use than even the term esclava to describe a woman that cleans your house. It has the connotation that you breed and raise them on your property so they'll grow up to be your servants. Of course, I don't think that goes on here in Mexico anymore, but it does convey that meaning in a historical context.

Therefore, if you come to Mexico and you want to hire a maid, don't call her una criada. If you're going to put a want ad in the newspaper, say you're seeking una serviente. This also works for pretty much anyone where the English word 'servant' could apply (butlers, gardeners, cook), although for most of these jobs, there are more specific translations that are more appropriate. (Of course, if it's a male servant to whom you are referring, you'd use el serviente.)

Posted by crispy at 12:19 AM | Comments (1)

March 20, 2006

Some (Mexican? Guadalajaran?) Spanish Oddities

I've learned a lot since I've moved here to Mexico, and among the things I've found out are some things I never learned in Spanish class. If you're moving or planning a trip to Mexico, knowing these things might make you sound a little less like a gringo.

One of the first things I noticed here was that when you ask someone how they're doing:

¿Cómo está?

The standard reply that I always expected to be a simple "Bien," is actually doubled, like:

¡Bien, bien!

This is not to say that if someone's having a rough day, you won't hear them say it just once. Yet I seriously think that 95% of the time, they will say it twice.

When you go to the store and you need something, I would have thought you'd say:

Necesito unos clavos de 20 milimetros.

You don't. Instead, they use the ver ocupar, which usually means, "to take up," "to hold, fill," "to occupy," or "to squat (in a place, as in squatter)."

Ocupo unos clavos de 20 milimetros.

An "elevator" is usually called un ascendedor, but not here in Mexico. Instead it's un elevador.

And when we were looking for apartments, I expected to see at least one sign that used the typical Spanish verb for "rent," which is alquilar. Still, I saw not a single one. Instead they all say, se renta (for sale), using rentar as the verb.

It could be argued that these two things are examples of English encroaching on Spanish as Mexico borders the United States, and I suspect this is true. Yet while some regard this as a shame, I think it's kind of nice to see some sharing between the two cultures - as long as it's not unidirectional, and we all know how much Taco Bell has contributed in bringing Spanish to English-speaking cultures.

The most popular word for "cool" down here (as in "That's really cool!") is chido. I would expect that this is chida for a cool feminine object, but I have not been able to confirm this.

For those of you who want to know all those phrases they don't cover in textbooks, check out the Alternative Mexican Spanish Dictionary. But I warn you. It's naughty.

Posted by crispy at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2005

Trying Really Hard

I just submitted a hotel booking form for the Hotel San Francisco Plaza on which there was a field for reservated by, and the response page said, "Your reservation had been processed." Those are not even the funny translations I've seen recently. Sadly for you, dear reader, I did not jot those down at the time for later use in this entry. But there is a great one I remember from our last visit to Guadalajara...

Shawn reminded me earlier tonight of one of the most accurate inaccuracies we've heard in translation, on the Tequila Express at the beginning of the trip. They give a little speech as the train heads out of the station, welcoming you, telling about the beverage service (¡all you can drink Herradura!), outlining the schedule and so forth. At the end, our guide closed his comments with, "If you need anything at all, please don't bother to ask."

We laughed about that being quite honest for modern-day service industries, but that's not really fair to the Tequila Express folks (it is quite a quality experience). In some ways, it's not really appropriate to joke much about these goofs because at least the people are making an effort to cater to me in my native language, even though it's in their country. And they are trying really hard. The rest of the speech was absolutely flawless, and the fact that this mistake is a mixing of two different similar phrases in English and not simply an ommision of the word don't, it demonstrates a pretty decent command of the language.

But it does show how hard it is to master a foreign language and causes me to think about how many similar flubs I'm going to make in Mexico. I wonder if I'll end up being quoted on some Mexican's blog in an entry discussing the funny things that foreigners say in Spanish?

Posted by crispy at 01:38 AM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2005

In the future, everyone will hablar español for fifteen minutos.

La Opinión discusses the growth of the "Hispanic market" resulting from a 45% increase in Spanish-speaking people in the United States over the past two decades.

The newspaper bases its article around a report: El futuro del idioma español en Estados Unidos, published by Roslow Research Group and funded by Hispanic USA Inc.

Among the predictions and figures in the article:

The publisher notes that this study contradicts claims by some companies that there is no advantage to printing bilingual labels and manuals for their products, further asserting that those companies who do use bilingual materials for their products will have a great advantage over those who do not within the Spanish-speaking market.

The article also cites census data from 1994-2004 that shows that spending by Spanish-speakers has grown at a rate of three-times that of the rest of the population.

Say "hola" to job security, mis profesores.

Para leer más sobre este asunto en español, vea el artículo de La Opinión, El español, lenguaje de la emoción y... ventas.

You can read an English summary at the Hispanic USA Inc. web site.

Posted by crispy at 02:58 AM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2005

Indicating Political Party Affiliation

For the three major parties in Mexico:

Posted by crispy at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

crayon

Oddly enough, the Spanish word for "crayon" in Cuba, Honduras, Mexico and Uruguay is crayola.

Usage:

Al parecer, las irregularidades fueron menores durante la jornada electoral, y entre éstas destacaba que en el municipio de Luvianos fueron detectadas 51 boletas electorales marcadas con crayola oficial a favor del PRI.

From El PRI gana en el Estado de México, según encuestas, Monday 4 July 2005, La opinión.

Posted by crispy at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2005

Get Your Own National Scandal!

el caso Pemexgate

Usage:

Tras las millonarias multas a la coalición PRI-PVEM, por el caso Pemexgate, y al PAN, por Amigos de Fox, los partidos políticos ''deben tener más cuidado'' en el manejo de recursos económicos en sus campañas electorales, pues la ley señala que en caso de una reincidencia las penas se incrementan y éstas pueden llegar incluso hasta la cancelación del registro, que significaría la ''muerte política'' del partido acusado, advirtió ayer el presidente del Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF), Eloy Fuentes Cerda.

From ''Muerte política'' al partido que reincida en conductas ilícitas: TEPJF, Thursday 2 June 2005, La jornada.

[Pemexgate background]

Posted by crispy at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2005

el claroscuro

Usage:

-¿Ha perdido credibilidad el gobierno de Vicente Fox?

-Yo no podría dar esa respuesta tan contundente; creo
que el gobierno tiene claroscuros; tiene aciertos y
desaciertos.

From Cerca del fracaso', la política del gobierno contra el crimen: Soberanes, Wednesday 25 May 2005, La jornada.

This doesn't appear to be the same usage of the English chiaroscuro, but rather an idiomatic use to mean something like ups and downs, pros and cons or in this case, successes and failures, in English.

Posted by crispy at 06:21 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2005

¿Dónde está el baño?

It's a phrase that even those whose Spanish is limited to the menu at Taco Bell know. But if you have never consumed too much tequila nor ordered your carnitas a little more picante than you should have, you may have somehow gotten along without knowing that this phrase asks, "Where is the bathroom?"

Or at least, before I went to Mexico, that's how I thought you'd ask that question.

Learning to speak a language properly is much harder than it seems. No amount of classroom education can teach you the very fine subtleties of when to use certain words instead of others. With the word el baño, if one were to look it up, he would find, among words of similar connotation, that it does mean "bathroom." In fact, if you went up to someone in Mexico and asked them, "¿Dónde está el baño?" chances are, they'd know what you wanted.

So what is wrong with calling a bathroom un baño? Nothing really, as far as making yourself understood goes. But it was curious to me that when I went to Mexico, I only saw that word used for "bathroom" on a couple of occasions.

Everywhere else, it was sanitarios.

And I have recently read that another acceptable term is excusados. Yet I'd never heard either of these before.

So why do most gringos know the bathroom as el baño? There are a few reasons why we Americans who learn Spanish as a secondary language might learn terms that are different from those actually used wherever we might go in the New World.

Spain - It seems that for years and years and years, the form of Spanish that was viewed as "proper" Spanish here in the United States was the kind spoken in Spain, and Latin American varieties were like bastard children that didn't know any better. Often textbooks and dictionaries show a bias toward Spanish vocabulary from Spain, without even mentioning Latin American terms that are used exclusively over here in the New World. Sometimes, they even tell you certain terms that are offensive (or at least naughty) in some Latin American countries. This is understandable if they are from a European company, but be aware of this when buying your dictionaries.

Generalization - In English, we have a lot of words for the pieces of furniture you sit on. You might sit on a recliner, a stool or a rocker, but they are all generally types of chairs. If you were trying to teach someone how to talk about these things without cluttering their minds with lots of different terms, you might just lump all of them together and call them all chairs. The same thing happens in Spanish textbooks.

Cognates - These are words that look or sound similar to words in English and have the same general meanings. Yet often these cognates have slight shades of meaning that they do not have in English, rendering their use a little odd when used in similar situations when we'd use them in English. The problem is, they're the easiest words to remember, because they're like the ones we use in our native language. For example, the English word except has three matching words in Spanish: menos, salvo and excepto. Because excepto is so similar to the word in English, it is easier to remember and more accessible than the other terms.

The Media - It's an old cliché in science fiction: aliens learn all they know of Earth culture from receiving our media transmissions. Yet it's not so far-fetched within our more immediate environment; the media has a great impact on the phrases we know from other languages. Just think of how much German you know from all those movies about Nazis in WWII. Now think how using many of those phrases on your trip through Germany would get you nasty looks.

If you are a student of Spanish and planning to use your Spanish in Mexico, be aware of these things. The biggest shock in my experience (and worthy of its own entry) came from trying to understand the Spanish descriptions of menu items in the restaurants in Mexico. Food terminology seems to have a lot of regional variations.

I don't know that any of the influences listed above really apply in the case of baño. My biggest fear is that in using calling the bathroom el baño, I'm using terminology that is too coarse and not what educated Spanish speakers would use. For now, when I'm north of the border, I'll go to el baño, but when in Mexico, I'll only use los sanitarios.

Posted by crispy at 06:00 AM | Comments (1)