Opposite of Spanglish?
Jul. 10th, 2007 10:24 pmOk, not exactly the opposite of Spanglish, but while I'm looking for words to describe things in my life, I'd love a word to describe that pathetic thing that I do, as a non-speaker of Spanish who knows only about 10 verbs (ok, more than 10, but only about 10 *useful* verbs), and only one conjugation for most of those (present tense, woot!) and maybe, maybe 100 words that I can reliably come up with in Spanish (and half of those are food or relationship nouns etc.). I have actually studied Spanish for one year in high school, and I worked in a bakery where everyone spoke Spanish so I learned a few rude words and a lot of words about flour and cutting and measuring. But one high school year of Spanish doesn't go very far. High school Spanish in the first year has lots of sentences that are useful as a tourist, but not so much in the library.
I still remember that aceitunas are olives and cacahuetes are peanuts and that a licuado de fresas is a tasty strawberry beverage, but this does not help me describe things like books and return policies. I do remember how to say the word for bathroom, (though not how to spell it) which does come in handy in the library more often than you might expect if you don't work in one. I know numbers and days of the week and how to say week and month and book and child and film, so that helps... but I don't find the time to study the way I keep thinking I will (this might be because I work two jobs and so forth).
Sadly for all the very polite immigrant folks in our neighborhood, when I can't find a convenient grade school child to help me out, a transcript of me trying to help a Spanish-speaking person at the circulation desk goes a bit like this...
Spanish speaking person: Do you speak Spanish?
Me: ummmm... un poco
Spanish speaking person: (long speech out of which I catch the words, say, como, yo, computadora, yahoo)
Me: Umm... nosotros tenemos a... um, (puts face in hands) (mumbles: why do I still not know the word for list) (mumbles: avant que... no that's French, argh!) (makes hand gestures and comes around desk, makes waving follow me gestures..)
Nice Spanish speaking person follows me to the computer, and we do a long pantomime and we get them signed up for the waiting list for the computers, which I may have just called something like "list para esperar para las computadoras", which I am sure is not actually Spanish even in part....
So there should be a word for what English speaking people do when they brutally mangle the little Spanish they know. I must add here that all the Spanish speaking people I have ever met are really really gracious about this. If you can mumble something nice about your mom in Spanish, follow half their question, and squeeze out a verb or two, they will be all like "you're doing so well! how fabulous! what a nice girl!" to you, and they're not sarcastic either. Which is silly, because everyone I've ever met who speaks Spanish in the United States speaks at least 10 times the English that I do Spanish. And quite often they speak two or three other languages as well. The whole phrase "ESL" irks me, because for only a few of the immigrants I've ever met is English their second language. Quite often it's their third or fourth. (of course, if I'm going to cut myself a bit of slack, Spanish is my fourth language as far as how much of it I know... I can read French pretty comfortably, and read a bit of German... never having done any immersion my speaking abilities in all of those languages are abysmal. And if I can still pronounce even four words right in Chinese I'd probably eat a hat in shock... Latin I've still got a few conjugations in, but no declensions and mostly only the rude words... it still amuses me that "leno" means "pimp" in Latin, though...)
I still remember that aceitunas are olives and cacahuetes are peanuts and that a licuado de fresas is a tasty strawberry beverage, but this does not help me describe things like books and return policies. I do remember how to say the word for bathroom, (though not how to spell it) which does come in handy in the library more often than you might expect if you don't work in one. I know numbers and days of the week and how to say week and month and book and child and film, so that helps... but I don't find the time to study the way I keep thinking I will (this might be because I work two jobs and so forth).
Sadly for all the very polite immigrant folks in our neighborhood, when I can't find a convenient grade school child to help me out, a transcript of me trying to help a Spanish-speaking person at the circulation desk goes a bit like this...
Spanish speaking person: Do you speak Spanish?
Me: ummmm... un poco
Spanish speaking person: (long speech out of which I catch the words, say, como, yo, computadora, yahoo)
Me: Umm... nosotros tenemos a... um, (puts face in hands) (mumbles: why do I still not know the word for list) (mumbles: avant que... no that's French, argh!) (makes hand gestures and comes around desk, makes waving follow me gestures..)
Nice Spanish speaking person follows me to the computer, and we do a long pantomime and we get them signed up for the waiting list for the computers, which I may have just called something like "list para esperar para las computadoras", which I am sure is not actually Spanish even in part....
So there should be a word for what English speaking people do when they brutally mangle the little Spanish they know. I must add here that all the Spanish speaking people I have ever met are really really gracious about this. If you can mumble something nice about your mom in Spanish, follow half their question, and squeeze out a verb or two, they will be all like "you're doing so well! how fabulous! what a nice girl!" to you, and they're not sarcastic either. Which is silly, because everyone I've ever met who speaks Spanish in the United States speaks at least 10 times the English that I do Spanish. And quite often they speak two or three other languages as well. The whole phrase "ESL" irks me, because for only a few of the immigrants I've ever met is English their second language. Quite often it's their third or fourth. (of course, if I'm going to cut myself a bit of slack, Spanish is my fourth language as far as how much of it I know... I can read French pretty comfortably, and read a bit of German... never having done any immersion my speaking abilities in all of those languages are abysmal. And if I can still pronounce even four words right in Chinese I'd probably eat a hat in shock... Latin I've still got a few conjugations in, but no declensions and mostly only the rude words... it still amuses me that "leno" means "pimp" in Latin, though...)