Friday, November 21st, 2008

Hola! Buenos dias/tardes/noches! Como estas? Bebes vino? Bebo muchos, muchos vino. Spanish is great isn't it? Ok, I've only been to two lessons so I can't watch Almodovar films without the subtitles just yet (actually I think even the Spanish need subtitles for his films. I mean have you seen Talk To Her??), but so far I've found it fairly easy to pick up. Because the Spanish keep it simple. None of this le, la and les rubbish you get from the French. And they hardly even bother with an I, you, him, her, it or they, either. So 'Do you drink wine?' becomes just, 'Bebes vino?' How cool is that?

That's about all we've learnt at the moment though, which makes for limited conversation in class, as we are only allowed to speak in Spanish. So after asking what our names are, Como te llamas?, what our surnames are 'Y de apellido?', how they are spelt, 'Como se escribe?' and if we eat meat and write letters, 'Comes carne? Escribes cartas?', we're left to just practice rolling our rs – apparently it's not genetic and everyone can do it. Except me.

And pronunciation is where the Spanish lose it and go all silly on us foreigners. I mean why roll the r? It just makes me think I've got an unfit tongue. It used to be the one muscle in my body that I thought was just fine and dandy, but then the Spanish have to come along and put theirs in all sorts of places, rendering my enunciation the equivalent of the missionary position to their karma sutra. Add to that the nonsense of pronouncing 2 ll's as a 'j', c as 'the', z as 'the' and v as 'b' and you understand the true meaning of 'tongue-tied'. And because pronunciation is one of the key elements of speaking a language and being understood, it looks like I'm going to have to give my tongue a bit of a work out. I only hope that you can't 'pull a tongue' or get cramp in it. I'm sure if it's possible, then I'll be the first to find out.

But the worst was yet to come. The hardest word to pronounce that I've come across so far, is the one I'll probably be using the most. It's got a whole lot of thethethethes in it. It's cerveza, and it means beer. Those bastardos.