American in Spain

Learning the words for the meals of the day is difficult any time you change cultures, whether you change languages or not. In different parts of the US, for instance, the word “dinner” can either refer to the meal at midday or in the evening. It took me years of living the UK to realize that “having tea” doesn’t only refer to imbibing an infusion, but can often refer to the evening meal. In Spain, most people eat three main meals each day, but there are words for five meals. Confused? Let’s have a look…
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I’ve been focusing lately on Nora’s English, as my readers are more likely to understand her, but I thought I’d post some videos showcasing her Spanish development. One of Nora’s favorite pastimes is talking on the phone with her abuela (Spanish grandmother). There are times when Nora is entertained with some other task and won’t even take the phone, but there are other times where they have spoken for more than an hour, once to the point where Nora got a little hoarse. It’s very much a stream of consciousness sort of conversation, with Nora at the helm, and her abuela interjecting comments here or there to keep up the flow, sticking around long after I would’ve bored of the conversation.
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The internet has pretty much shut down today. Well, most of the sites that make the internet entertaining, such as Fark, Reddit, The Oatmeal and Wikipedia. They are protesting possible US Congressional legislation that could potentially give the US Government the power to shut down any internet site that any corporation claims is violating copyright laws. This “shoot first, ask questions later” approach is rather ridiculous to anyone that takes even the briefest moment to consider the consequences. Learn more here. Anyway, I thought I’d join in the protest by providing a graphic that uses some images to playfully demonstrate what these acronyms mean in Spanish.
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One of Nora’s favorite pastimes lately is having imaginary arguments over the phone, usually with her friends from daycare or her daycare provider, but sometimes with her grandparents. Somehow, she latched on to one poor lad named Rubén and has ceaseless fights with him “over the phone”, perhaps giving a glimpse into boy troubles that await us in adolescence. Just like when she used to pretend to yell at another daycare classmate, I suspect that this poor Rubén fellow is completely innocent of all the charges he’s being accused of on a daily, hourly, and minutely basis, but it’s seems to be all real in Nora’s mind. Unfortunately, Rubén is one of the few kids at daycare that doesn’t have a mugshot next to his cubbyhole, so I don’t even know what he looks like. He certainly has Nora’s attention, though.
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Today is a local holiday honoring the Virgin of the Good Apparition, a bit of pareidolia that occurred back in 1605 where some light reflecting off a nearby hermitage window reminded someone of the Virgin Mary. Three hundred years later, this particular virgin became the patron saint of the Santander Diocese, and it became a regional holiday. Quite a few people walk the 13 kilometers, mostly uphill, from Colindres to the Bien Aparecida church in Ampuero, and then there are picnics and music and a general festive atmosphere up there…or so I’m told. We’ll have to do the walk one year.
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Like most of my best wordplay, it had escaped my mouth before I realized the cleverness of it. I was talking with my daughter this morning, and I said, “You’re so messy! You’re like [Argentine soccer player, Barcelona phenom, and possibly the best living soccer player] Leo Messi!” I stopped for a minute, realized the significance of what I’d said, and went into the next room with a “Look how clever I am!” look on my face to tell my wife, but she stopped me and said that she’d heard what I’d said and already – probably before I did – noticed the humor/coincidence of it. Did any of my bilingual readers pick up on it?
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This morning it was raining, so we couldn’t go outside for Nora to release her toddler energy in the playground. At one point she started going on and on about “Se acabó el turno” which means “The turn is over”. It makes about the same amount of sense in both languages. My best hypothesis is that it’s something that the daycare workers tell the kids as they rotate one child out of a high chair and put another one in. Or perhaps when they are forced to share toys? I’ve certainly never said it to her in Spanish, nor have I heard anyone else speak those words.
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The Spanish news and gossip media has been aflutter lately with stories about the British royal family. It’s reminded me about a really bizarre phenomenon when it comes to names of members of the royal family. For some reason they are translated into their Spanish equivalent. For instance, the current monarch of England is called Reina Isabel. She and her husband, Principe Felipe have a son, Principe Carlos, who is next in line to the throne. Carlos has two sons, Principe Guillermo and Principe Enrique. That sounds so weird. In no other circumstance are names translated like this.
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This is one of the more curious Spanish expressions to me. I think it was first introduced to me by my Spanish friends in England when my future wife traveled alone to Spain for a wedding and I had to stay behind because the British immigration officers were getting uneasy with me going to and from Spain so much. Here’s a brief definition of the expression, followed by a longer explanation I’ve gathered from some internet research:

estar de Rodríguez: adj. the state of being left at home alone to work by one’s spouse (wife, typically) and children, while they go on vacation.

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As I have mentioned before, Nora has a very strong preference for speaking Spanish over English. It can be rather frustrating for me, since I’m doing everything in my power to motivate her to use English, and she just refuses. My general technique for reinforcing English use goes like this:

1. Nora asks for something in Spanish.
2. I say “What?” or just pretend to not hear.
3. She repeats the request in Spanish.
4. I repeat the request for her in English.
5. She repeats the request in English.
6. I immediately act on giving her whatever she asked for.

In the last month, her spoken Spanish has really taken off, and I think her English understanding has improved greatly as well. I can only think of three words that she tends to use in English before Spanish: cookie, shoe, and down, as in “get me down from this chair”.
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