I finished reading "Harry Potter Y El Misterio del Principe" the sixth book of the series yesterday after months of pecking away at it. I'm getting a bit sick of the little twerp and may root for Voldemort when the seventh book gets translated into Spanish. I'm now on to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "Ojos De Perro Azul", (Eyes of the Blue Dog) a book of short stories by the great man. Gabe's themes are more complex than the simple good versus evil you get in Potter and I'm looking forward to that. What I'm not looking forward to is the more complex Spanish. If you're wondering how I manage to read this second language with my wizened old brain, the answer is, of course, slowly. I look up lots of words; mostly nouns and verbs and the occasional adjective. There are too many adjectives and adverbs to learn and so many that I just will never use. For instance if the author writes, "Harry said wryly" (in Spanish I'm talking)I'm not going to look up wryly, because it is a word I'll probably never find a use for unless I decide to write in Spanish which seems unlikely in that I'm just now getting the hang of English... more or less. I realize I miss a certain subtlety the author is implying by not looking up wryly, but, c'mon, I'm old. I'm saving time for learning words I can use in actual conversation. Words like "chupar", to suck. That way I can say, Los Yankees se chupan when I talk to someone wearing an NY baseball cap. Someone small, frail and old that is. I've found that after I've looked up the same word about four times it sticks in my mind and I remember it the next time it appears in the text. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that the word is now a part of my spoken vocabulary. For that I have to use the word aloud, in a sentence context, an additonal three or four times. Again, like chupar. I use that a lot. I would be further along conversationally if I weren't essentially shy. I'm not one to strike up a chat with a stranger, a thing useful for getting the hang of a new language, and even when I am forced to converse, I try to keep it short. A couple of cocktails will loosen my Spanish tongue, but I don't think that's an advisable training aid. Or is it? A little scotch in the morning coffee might be just the thing.
Nah, I think I'll just go read a book.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
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4 comments:
Oi, achei seu blog pelo google está bem interessante gostei desse post. Gostaria de falar sobre o CresceNet. O CresceNet é um provedor de internet discada que remunera seus usuários pelo tempo conectado. Exatamente isso que você leu, estão pagando para você conectar. O provedor paga 20 centavos por hora de conexão discada com ligação local para mais de 2100 cidades do Brasil. O CresceNet tem um acelerador de conexão, que deixa sua conexão até 10 vezes mais rápida. Quem utiliza banda larga pode lucrar também, basta se cadastrar no CresceNet e quando for dormir conectar por discada, é possível pagar a ADSL só com o dinheiro da discada. Nos horários de minuto único o gasto com telefone é mínimo e a remuneração do CresceNet generosa. Se você quiser linkar o Cresce.Net(www.provedorcrescenet.com) no seu blog eu ficaria agradecido, até mais e sucesso. If is possible add the CresceNet(www.provedorcrescenet.com) in your blogroll, I thank. Good bye friend.
For those of you who stumble on the crescenet comment, let me advise that it is not Spanish, it's Portuguese. Some Portugoslings from Brazil are trying to sell me Internet Service. It is interesting to me though, that I can read this language fairly well...as well!
Very cool! Not that you're getting spam, that you can read Portuguese!
Hey, did you know that Argentinian is quite different from the rest of Latin American Spanish? With "ll" and "y" pronounced a soft "che" instead of "ya"? I bet you did know that.
Any idea what Panamanians think of Argentinians?
Panamanians seem to like everyone but Bush and Co. They even like we Norte Americanos. Better than the French anyway.
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