reposted from the Baja Report blog 4/10/2016
Never sacrifice a good story for the truth…andy b
So I wasn’t going to write any more blogs this year. My thoughts have moved from tacos and beer to Sonoma County zinfandel and grass feed beef with blue cheese, pommes frites and locally grown farm to table artisanal salad. $80 at Chez Bistro Trattoria. But I just gotta do one more.
As you know from my famous blog Hardware Store Spanish I have long resisted speaking Spanish. Just yesterday I had a wonderful opportunity to not speak Spanish. The police drove into our yard in their nice 4 door pickup. The passenger side cop (good cop) yelled out a greeting to me. I responded, “Hola Senors, Ich spreche no mucho Spanisch. Mein frau specke Spanisch gut. Ein momento.” The cop said, “Como, Senor.” Then Sal came out. Sal asked them if there are any ladrons (thieves) in the hood. They said, “No ladrons ahorita (no thieves right now).” Then she gave them 100 pesos for “coffee” ($6.50 US). They love coffee.
I have used German (my only foreign language unless you count hardware store Spanish) as a defensive weapon in Mexico. I learned a little German in college. I wanted to learn Italian so I could argue with my mother in one of her native tongues (the other was French which she used for praying and math. Italian was for yelling.) but it wasn’t offered. One day I was at the airport In San Jose del Cabo picking up my son when I drove the wrong way on a newly unmarked 1 way street in front of terminal uno. I got pulled over by a Policia Federal (Darth Vaders of Mexico). He told me in Spanish that I was driving the wrong way. I thought, at first, that maybe he noticed I wasn’t 10 and 2 o’clock on the steering wheel. But no I was going the wrong way on the strasse. I said, “Ich bin ein tourista und Ich speche kein Spanisch.” He repeated his admonition in a louder voice. I repeated my response in a louder voice. He repeated, I repeated. I was just about to get out my FAKE GERMAN DIPOLMATIC PASSPORT that I made in FotoCounterfit, when I noticed that his dark glasses were fogging. He put his hands on his hips, looked at me, looked at the street, looked at me, and then pointed the right direction for the street. He got back into his death star patrol car and drove off (the wrong way). German just confounds these poor Darth Vaders. If I had taken Estonian in college I could have really confused the cop. Very few Estonian touristas.
Learning Spanish is a major pursuit of many of my fellow seasonal expats. There are many great options. There is Underwater Yoga and Spanish Immersion offered. There is also a group that does Hyperbaric Chamber and Cooking in Spanish. This is a unique experience. After enriching the blood with oxygen in the chamber (and therefore enhancing intelligence) the students are given cooking challenges all in Spanish. The really good part is the students are sent, ala reality tv, into small Mexican towns that have few stores to find ingredients. They really need to know some Spanish for this task. It would be very difficult to make dinner with 2 bicycle tires and a piñata.
My favorite though is a Seven Day Interactive Spanish Experience. The students go to a romantic mountain town on the mainland and live with a wealthy Mexican family. During the morning Spanish classes are held in which the students learn elegant and polite methods of saying NO to Mexican beach vendors. In the afternoon there are tours of the countryside. I may have wanted to go to this one in another life. But it is $8000 U S for 1 week. That’s why the Mexican families are so wealthy.
Also the failure rate of this particular Spanish learning experience is very high. Somehow the Gringos cannot learn to say no to the beach vendors.
So I decided to create my own Spanish class. Not to learn Spanish. Heaven forbid I would damage my already fading German. Also I wouldn’t want to goof up our balance of power in which Sally talks Spanish and I smile and nod. It wouldn’t be right. I am doing it for a typical reason here. I don’t have much else to do. And it is surprisingly fun.
My method is very simple. Dialogues. I learned German that way.
A typical dialogue goes like this:
Buenos Dias Senor, donde esta la biblioteca???
Good morning sir, where is the library???
Buenos Dias, la biblioteca está al otro lado de la calle.
Good morning, the library is across the street.
I like the Donde Esta dialogue as it is so versatile. All I have to do to expand my vocabulary is change the direct object. Example:
Buenos Dias Senor, donde esta las albóndigas???
Good Morning sir, where is the meatballs???(supposed to change verb tense but I don’t want to, the plural is hard enough)
Answer: Buenos Dias, las albondigs está al otro lado de la calle.
Good morning, the meatballs is across the street.
You can do this too. Just use the Donde Esta form and change the direct object. Here are some suggestions:
Buenos Dias Senor, donde esta El Papa??? the pope
Buenos Dias Senor, donde esta el utan??? orangatang
Buenos Dias Senor, donde esta la cucaracha con sombrero???cockroach with sombrero (tricky eh?)
And of coarse the answer is always the same:
Buenos Dias, la cucaracha con sombrero está al otro lado de la calle.
Good morning, the cockroach with sombrero is across the street.
Simplemente Maria.
I plan to do this dialogue for several weeks then possibly move on to the I want dialogue:
Yo Quiero espagueti y carnitas. I want spaghetti and pork.
Think of the possibilities for passing vast amounts of time in Baja. PERFECT!