blog (category: language)
no cuelgue, por favor
I just called a hospital in El Salvador on behalf of our sales department, to try and get a doctor they'd met at a conference on the line. They'd hit a brick wall when the secretary there didn't speak English.
I made some progress (arranged to call back in an hour) but it was ugly. I get nervous and the words don't come out right.
Whereas according to the 2000 decennial census of the population, 9.3 percent of Americans speak both their native language and another language fluently;
Whereas according to the European Commission Directorate General for Education and Culture, 52.7 percent of Europeans speak both their native language and another language fluently;
-- Senate Resolution 28 Designating 2005 as the "Year of Foreign Language Study"
Without thinking twice
I began reading Sebastian Delmont's Zonageek blog a few months ago upon discovering his MTMail utility. MTMail powers MovableType blogging by email, and allows me to post camera-phone images I take while on the move (my moblog).
Today breaking for lunch and a Zonageek entry, Teclado en español, or Keyboard in Spanish, (he writes in both English and Spanish,) I read of Sebastian's frustrations with keyboard layouts. Neither international nor English keyboards suit his needs effectively.
At the end of last year (a finales del año pasado) Microsoft released a tool to alter keyboard layouts. Describing his haste in downloading and trying out the utility, Sebastian writes,
Ni corto ni perezoso la bajé y empecé a jugar con ella.
Confident I understood his meaning, but not being familiar with the phrase, (Ni corto ni perezoso is literally, Neither short nor lazy,) I used babelfish to translate for me. The result?
Without thinking twice I lowered it and I began to play with her.
Que fuerte...
tranquilo
I've moved on, but not far away, to live with a Spanish couple, Luis and Nube and their 4-year old daughter, Zaira. They are the ex-hippie sort, very chill, very mature, and very kind. Tranquilo is the phrase of the stay so far. They have a small finca that is a little piece of paradise, and do a bit of pottery, that Luis sells at Mercados Medievales around Spain. Nube teaches T'ai Chi/QiGong in the local pueblos. I joined Luis this past weekend for a trip to the market in Alicante, where we dressed in medieval garb to sell earrings, magnets, vases, ocarinas, and more.
They speak no English, so I am learning Spanish quickly, though I've got so far to go...
Clear skies.
movement
Action is the key to winning 50% of my self-battles. Always such a small thing -- only a flick of the finger to get the ball rolling -- but somehow so hard for me.
I decided to begin calling farms on my WWOOF list, tired of awaiting email replies. The first person I called asked me, after I struggled through a few sentences in Español, if I would like to speak in English. The rest of the call proceeded just as smoothly, and we decided I would leave Madrid for their finca (small farm) in two days, after a short trip to Toledo.