|
Thursday, January 24, 2002 There are times when I take a moment to step back, glance at my life, remind myself all over again that I am living some of my dreams, and I can only shake my head in wonder at my good fortune. This morning between classes, I found myself in a café hanging out with: a guy from Germany, a young woman from France, a woman from Hungary and another guy -- much more traveled than I -- from the States. All of us speaking less than perfect Spanish, but working at it, having a pretty good time, and undoubtedly providing some hair-raising moments for nearby Spaniards as we bent their language to our collective will. After class, Philip, Pedro and myself went to a small Cuban restaurant that Philip and I stumbled across on Tuesday. A nice little joint -- actually, a bit too nice to be a joint -- run by friendly folks, serving good chow. Throughout the meal they played a selection of what sounded like Cuban pop, running the gamut from highly tuneful to nearly hideous, with the added bonus of the CD player getting hung up now and then so that a bitchen morsel of hispanic pop -- horns, caffeinated percussion, highly enthusiastic vocals -- morphed into a drug-addled bit of gnawingly repetitious techno. We'd say something to the management, they'd smite the CD player, the music resumed. Pedro: one of the funniest, brightest people I've come across in a while, and can talk like no one's business. He doesn't simply blab, his conversation qualifies as performance, one that happily includes whomever is nearby and wants to take part. Philip: also enjoyable, exceedingly German in tone and manner. The two of them together provide fine, madcap entertainment. The waitress -– a young, heavyset 20ish woman -– kept trying to do her job (enumerate menu options, take order, etc.), finding the attempt to impose order on our chaos to be nearly impossible, working against ongoing commentary, nonsequitors, sudden side-conversations, snorting laughter. I could only feel for her. Not that we treated her disrespectfully -- we were just unstoppable in our ability to entertain ourselves. In past entries, I've mentioned the all-purpose Spanish swear word 'joder.' Pedro frequently peppers his talk with a variation of that: 'jolín' (hoe-leen -– the H being pronounced with a strong, rough sound at the back of the throat). The children's version of joder. (Picture Spanish children -- beautiful, happy, high-spirited kids -- calling out '¡Jolin!' or the shorter, simpler version, '¡Jo!' -- like American 6 or 7-year-olds constantly yelling, "Oh, shoot!") Other bits of profanity learned recently: Spaniards refer to the toilet as the throne (el trono), just as many Americans do (to sit on the throne = sentarse en el trono). That all by itself deserves a silly smile. But the company that manufactures most Spanish toilets is named Roca, resulting in a popular euphemism for going to the toilet: 'visitar a Señor Roca' -- to visit Mr. Roca. Let's see, what else? Peepee is pipi, poop is popo. Snot is moco, but you probably already knew that. Ah, here's one: the word 'puta' (meaning whore, a noun with a nasty edge to it) is used as a short, snappy, all-purpose word of emphasis, so that if you, for instance, want to describe a brain-busting verb form being inflicted on you far too frequently by language teachers, you can say, "El subjuntivo," or you can let the listener know what you really think by saying, "El puto subjuntivo" (changing 'puta' to 'puto' to conform with the masculine subject 'subjuntivo). The expression 'Es una mierda' means 'It sucks.' If you want to crank that up just a touch, you could say, '¡Es una puta mierda!' On the other hand, the word 'puta' is used in a very common phrase -– '¡De puta madre!' -– which essentially translates out to 'Fucking great!' So if someone asks you about that film you saw last night ('¿Qué tal la pelicula anoche?') and you loved it, you might answer, '¡De puta madre!' More about adding zip to your Spanish in future entries. Right now I must pretend I'm a student and do some homework. rws 1:26 PM [+] |