The defining moment in my life that shifted the way I was thinking...and brought me to ubuntu.
Great question. Tough to answer.
In the sense of living and breathing and working and playing.
I recently signed up for a Spanish class. Reasons?
This is an adventure in getting a second language that will assist me in many countries I want to travel to and work in. It's the second most-spoken language in the world next to English. It's the language in El Salvador, where I am ...thinking of going next. And because when I was in India with 30+ other international volunteers, I couldn't believe I didn't speak another language fluently. Here I am, oh I can count to ten in German! I can order well in Italian? I took up to Grade 12 french and lived with three french girls?!
Well, my dear Tamara, that doesn't count for much.
So off I go every Wednesday to la clase de español. Our teacher is a beautiful being, a woman from Guatemala who married a German Canadian. Lucky for us, she teaches us a lot more about the Spanish (and most specifically Latin American) culture than the language itself.
For instance, why are Latin American names so long? When I first met my Mexican friend - Jimena Leticia Gayoso Lozano - I was like...dude, that is a mouthful. But it's because in their traditions, they carry their fathers name and their mothers maiden names, plus their married name once that's official (by adding a De Husbands Last Name) on the end there. Incredible? I think so. I like the idea of bringing some of my mother's lineage down the family tree.
Another interesting fact: whenever I hear people talking in another language, Spanish, Italian, French even, I always think they are yelling or angry because they are talking so damn fast. I believed I could never speak another language because of that. However, it's a known fact that any language you do not know, just seems super fast because you do not know it! For example, our teacher's mother was visiting from Guatemala and staying with her and her husband. By the end of her stay she told her daughter that she could not stand to live with them if they were going to fight so much.
Ha! They were not fighting, it's merely the fact that she didn't understand what they were saying and it sounded so ridiculous and angry and fast. Now that I know a bit of Spanish and I hear people talking, it seems to have slowed down a tiny little bit for me. Here's hoping...
And for our exam - get this, it's my favourite part - we don't have to write an exam or do a language test. Instead, we are put into groups where we must cook a recipe together that is completely written in Spanish. No help, no Google. And we have to eat it. And so does our class. Best exam I'll ever write.
And Jimena, Spanish words really are spoken exactly as they are written. I know I said that sounded like bs, but it's true! There's no guessing. You just have to have a basic understanding del alfabeto.
So, my house is covered in sticky notes, my dreams are beginning to be in Spanish and last weekend when I had the flu I counted from 1 - 99 over and over again en Español. La buena vida, si?
Did I mention that this summer I get to take two weeks of language training and live with a host family in my (by purely coincidence) teachers hometown, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala or "Xela" as the residents call it? More to come as I finalize those plans.
My favourite Spanish words along this journey?
esperanza (hope) amante (lover) una copa de vino (you guessed it)
vida (life) cariño (sweetie) sobrino (nephew) haste mañana (see you tomorrow)
mucho gusto (be happy / nice to meet you) te quiero (i love you)
te extraño (i miss you) ¡Vamos! (Let's go)
Ciao. ¡Adiós a todos!
This is an adventure in getting a second language that will assist me in many countries I want to travel to and work in. It's the second most-spoken language in the world next to English. It's the language in El Salvador, where I am ...
So off I go every Wednesday to la clase de español. Our teacher is a beautiful being, a woman from Guatemala who married a German Canadian. Lucky for us, she teaches us a lot more about the Spanish (and most specifically Latin American) culture than the language itself.
For instance, why are Latin American names so long? When I first met my Mexican friend - Jimena Leticia Gayoso Lozano - I was like...dude, that is a mouthful. But it's because in their traditions, they carry their fathers name and their mothers maiden names, plus their married name once that's official (by adding a De Husbands Last Name) on the end there. Incredible? I think so. I like the idea of bringing some of my mother's lineage down the family tree.
Another interesting fact: whenever I hear people talking in another language, Spanish, Italian, French even, I always think they are yelling or angry because they are talking so damn fast. I believed I could never speak another language because of that. However, it's a known fact that any language you do not know, just seems super fast because you do not know it! For example, our teacher's mother was visiting from Guatemala and staying with her and her husband. By the end of her stay she told her daughter that she could not stand to live with them if they were going to fight so much.
Ha! They were not fighting, it's merely the fact that she didn't understand what they were saying and it sounded so ridiculous and angry and fast. Now that I know a bit of Spanish and I hear people talking, it seems to have slowed down a tiny little bit for me. Here's hoping...
And for our exam - get this, it's my favourite part - we don't have to write an exam or do a language test. Instead, we are put into groups where we must cook a recipe together that is completely written in Spanish. No help, no Google. And we have to eat it. And so does our class. Best exam I'll ever write.
And Jimena, Spanish words really are spoken exactly as they are written. I know I said that sounded like bs, but it's true! There's no guessing. You just have to have a basic understanding del alfabeto.
So, my house is covered in sticky notes, my dreams are beginning to be in Spanish and last weekend when I had the flu I counted from 1 - 99 over and over again en Español. La buena vida, si?
Did I mention that this summer I get to take two weeks of language training and live with a host family in my (by purely coincidence) teachers hometown, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala or "Xela" as the residents call it? More to come as I finalize those plans.
My favourite Spanish words along this journey?
esperanza (hope) amante (lover) una copa de vino (you guessed it)
vida (life) cariño (sweetie) sobrino (nephew) haste mañana (see you tomorrow)
mucho gusto (be happy / nice to meet you) te quiero (i love you)
te extraño (i miss you) ¡Vamos! (Let's go)
Ciao. ¡Adiós a todos!
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