Baby Talk

I am trying really hard to learn Spanish.

It is one of my goals I set for myself before I moved down here.

I was off to a great start. Chris and I had purchased Rosetta Stone in an effort to 'bone up' before we moved here. I started it, but kept getting sidetracked by the drama of the move so did not get very far. I have tried to continue it here - and it is going OK, but is is woefully insufficient in teaching me the things I needed to know as soon as I moved here.

Things like I Want, I Need, I Go....... forget conjugation, I just need to go and pick up my kids at school and go to the grocery store.

Once I mastered that, I started learning things around the house and kitchen to help me with the maid - cuarto (room), cama (bed), llavar (to wash), limpiar (to clean), and of course please and thank you.

Spanish is beautiful because there is no confusion in spelling like with English. Each vowel only has one sound - ahh, eh, ee, oh, oo. Thats it, really simple. No long and short vowels, no shwa. If you can roll your rrrrrrs then you can say anything in Spanish. You just have to remember that j = h as our maid is Julia (hoo - lee - ah), g = h like general (hen - ne - ral), h = is silent like hache (ah - chey), v = b like vendaje (ben - dah - hey), and z = s like zapatos (sah - pot - toes). Piece of cake.

Many words with the same meaning are spelled exactly the same as english - but sound completely different in spanish.

For example, take the word universal - easy right - it is spelled the same, but here is sounds like oo-KNEE-bear-sal. Now if you are a native Venezlano you will say it in less than .3 seconds and drop the last syllable.

You hear a word. oo-KNEE-bear-sal. You tilt your head to the side, squench up your nose, and let your mind roll the syllables around like your first taste of Far Niete on the palate. You detect notes of familiarity, start to make a mental connection, and then, "I've got it!" Universal. However, by the time you realize what they have said is a word that you know, they have moved onto the next paragraph.

Right when we first moved here I was bursting with my exuberence to practice my spanish, in an attempt to tell my maid that my "hair was falling out on the floor" I said, "mi pellotas en el piso." She blinked a few times, smiled, and walked away. That translates to "my balls are in the floor" - so I got pelo (hair) and pelotas (balls) mixed up. Whatever.

My friend R said to ask people to speak to you in spanish as if you were two years old. Hmmm. That is about where my vocabulary is, so it makes sense. I'll have to try it.

Adios.