Habla Espanol?

LANGUAGE

As some of you know, I was a language person at one time. Spoke a few non-English lingoes fairly well. But through disuse and laziness the skills have atrophied. I still am involved with international students and greatly enjoy working with them to hone their skills in English.

When we have traveled to foreign lands Mrs. T has worked very diligently to acquire some skills in the local languages and she has been able to carry on passable conversations. Her efforts in Spanish have been particularly laudable as we spend extensive time here in Mexico. But the question herein is: Do you need to speak Spanish? Some other comments first.

Generally I have found that US citizens are about the worst when it comes to learning a foreign language. I think mostly it is arrogance. We do not feel the need to learn language – or much else for that matter – about another country. We feel other countries and peoples should move our direction and adopt, or at least adapt to, our ways with minimum efforts on our part. And to our advantage English has become the de facto lingua franca for the planet, used in most commerce, diplomacy, and other transactions.

People in other parts of the world, although there are exceptions, seem for the most part willing to recognize the need to communicate in many tongues and are willing, even anxious, to learn several. We have encountered many people who are not just bilingual but multilingual. Here it is quite common for people, especially those closer to the tourist industry, to speak three languages: Spanish, English, French being most common and not a few speaking Italian or German.

(As an aside: This area is really a very southern province of Canada. We are surrounded by Canadians, and sometimes we are misidentified as such, from all areas including both English and French (‘of a sort’ WD would say) speakers. The developer of our complex and his wife are also interesting in this regard. Joanne is French Canadian, so no surprise in her skill in French and English, but she speaks Spanish as well. Luis’ heritage is quite interesting. He was born in Mexico City. His first language is French! His family is actually of French ancestry and that was the language spoken at home. Recall that there has been a significant French presence in Mexico since before the Napoleonic era. And lest we forget, Spanish is not the native language – there were many Indian dialects here millennia before the arrival of Europeans. The Canadians seem to like lying about the pool, bakin’ in the afternoon sun.)

Back to the question at hand. One can get along reasonably well without fluency in Spanish. Generally Spanglish is adequate for most transactions. However, as one becomes further immersed in the local culture and more distant from the tourist venues, fluency is a greater asset. While one can still frequently be understood, it is the comprehension of what the locals are trying to tell you that becomes more problematic. It helps even just for understanding the dubbing or subtitles on tv shows. (Mrs.T prefers her own interpretative commentary during the infomercials.)

Let me put to rest two myths. First, talking louder does not help. Second, the folks are not talking too fast – we just listen too slowly. You will note that the above discussion is essentially about the spoken language. The situation with reading and writing is somewhat different. We can read a little and write virtually nil. (I rather like the concept of the question mark, albeit inverted, at the beginning as well as the end of a query. Anyone know what it is called? Note to GEH: How did you get that to appear in your email?) I am picking up the language by slow osmosis.

Hope this commentary did not bore you. A couple of more doors have been added to that picture album. It is Festival week. More about that later.

Dan and Rebecca