July 1st, 2009 by Rachel | Country: Peru | 3 Comments »
Be aware! If you read this further, you could end up puking…just kidding…
When I came to the table for lunch at my host family’s home, I looked at the dish with my eyes balling out and said to myself in my head, “What the fuck is that?!” (Please excuse me for my cussing). It looked as if someone threw up on the bread as there was a green pudding-like substance on the bread. I asked my host mother, “Qué es esto?” She responded, “espinaca.” That word sounded familiar. There is a French word, “épinards” and it means spinach. So, I figured that it was actually spinach sauce! I took a bite. No need to be scared of trying new strange food. That’s what traveling is about. Well, well… I puked! Just kidding! HaHa! It was actually VERY tasty! I could seriously eat the sauce on a regular basis to get GREEN nutrients in my body. This food is a prime example of the fact that we should not judge a book by its cover.
As for my Spanish course, it has been going very well. I have been learning it very quickly, and I’m already speaking in simple sentences. Remember, before I came to Peru, I had ZERO knowledge of Spanish except for Hola, Adios, que pasa, si, and manaña, thanks to a good friend of mine who taught me those words for starters. When I first came to my host family, I could only use hand gestures to communicate. By the second day, I was able to spit out some simple Spanish phrases to communicate with the host mother and was able to fill in some gaps by looking up the words in the dictionary or asking the other student from my Spanish school who is also living with my host family. By today, after having learned another huge chunk of words and phrases, the communication has become a little easier, but I am still speaking like a baby. I’m also able to read simple phrases without translating it to English or French, and respond to the questions in Spanish. It will get better as the days go by. It’s amazing how much I can pick up the language by just living in another country. I’m not talking about just taking the course in another country, but also listening to the Spanish speakers and communicating with them. In fact, the teachers at the school hardly speak English! The only hard part is speaking with the Spanish pronunciation, not French. For example, in French, when there is an “S” at the end of the word, we don’t pronounce the “S” except when there is a liaison – for example …suis allé.” However, in Spanish, we do, and I often forget to pronounce the “S” because my mind is set to French. Another example is the word “en” which means “in” in both languages. In French, we pronounce like “on.” In Spanish, we pronounce like “end” without the “d.” I often pronounce the French way because, as I said, my brain has been wired to French. When I’m learning Spanish, I actually often think in French because they’re very similar languages. Thinking in English is VERY difficult while learning Spanish because English is a completely DIFFERENT language in spite of the fact that English shares the same alphabet as French and Spanish.
3 Comments
Robyn
July 3, 2009 at 2:21 am
Fantastic – Wouldn’t mind some of tha tsauce myself
Glad you’re enjoying learning the language – I really admire you for it
Cheers
Robyn
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