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| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 41 of 154 05 February 2013 at 3:48am | IP Logged |
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Hey James,
I'm glad some people have caught fire from your passion for the language. Enthusiasm really is contagious. I think your wife may want to learn the language too, you just may have to sell it to her in the right way. 30million people in the US speak nothing but Spanish and there are new people showing up everyday. One of them could become your neighbor and it would be good to be able to speak with them. Central and South American countries could use some of the skill sets that American professionals have, not to mention our knowledge of the culture so I don’t think it would be too hard for a bilingual person to find work (either above or below the table). Also maybe you could sell learning the language as a backup plan. Heaven forbid that the US ever becomes a country with more emigration than immigration, but if for some reason, the US wasn’t a good place to live anymore, you guys could split and not have the added stress of not knowing the language. This last point isn’tas farfetched as it may seem. No empire has ever lasted forever and I don’t think anyone could argue that the US isn’t an empire. Kronos, I'm glad you enjoy my log. One day I hope to be like you and study soooo many languages. My trip to Mexico was very productive. I think I had some valuable insights, and learned a lot. I’m to the point where I don’t care what people think about my questions. If I don’t know I’ll ask. This goes for learning Spanish, work, or personal life. I think people are drawn to this type of assertiveness and it makes them want to help me even more. Here’s the run down of what happened on the trip. Monday Woke up at zero o’clock in the morning to catch a 5:30am flight. My second flight has mechanical problems so I missed my connection and had to wait in the airport for an additional 4 hrs. I was sort of upset about that but some food and beer made everything alright. I met up with some co-workers at the airport and we flew into mexico together. I was a little nervous about going through customs because my Mexican co-workers had me buy a ton of things with the customer’s logo on it. They are all hard workers and I trusted them so I basically spotted them a large about of money to get all the things they wanted. I bought everything from lapel pins, to large beer mugs, to knives. I was hoping my bag wouldn’t be searched but sure enough they noticed something irregular in my bag during the x-ray. The officer asked if I had some tools in the bag and I was like, “Yea, tools. I have tools,” in Spanish. I guess I was sufficiently convincing so he passed me on to the next step. I pressed a button and a red light came on. I thought, “here we go.” I lifted up my bag and unzipped it for a lady to inspect. Immediately she noticed the 3 large objects wrapped in cardboard. Here’s how our conversation went, in Spanish of course. “ What are these?” “Beer mugs” “Ohh, your Spanish is good.” “Thanks, I’ve been studying for 11 months.” “Why do you have so many?” “They are presents for my co-workers.” “That’s nice of you.” Now she is more engaged in talking to me than checking my bags. She doesn’t even notice the 5 knives that I had. Weeeeee. Before the trip I had bad day dreams of getting pulled into an office and being interrogated about the knives and other stuff. We made a little bit more small talk and then I was on my way. It’s funny how different situations make you have to learn new vocabulary. I had to look up the verb “to stab” so I could send an email to everyone who ordered something. “If you don’t have my money ready I will stab you with your own knife.” They were cracking up at that. Our driver showed up about 10mins after we got through customs and after introductions and stuff we begin talking in Spanish about everything. How was your Christmas. Your family. Learning English. Who won local elections. Custom made boots. Where to buy Cowboy hats and everything. It was fun and we spoke for the whole 30min car ride. He told me that he’s taking English classes and I was really excited for him. Many people have spoken about awkward car rides because of his limited language skills. When we arrived at the hotel the folks behind the counter remembered me. That was pretty cool. I got through the checkin process all in Spanish and ask how was everyone’s Christmas and was santa good to them. I also had to ask for some bags to carry all the things that my co-workers ordered. The conversation was kind of complicated because I had to describe the type of bag I wanted. Smaller than a garbage bad, but still strong etc. As a part of my new year’s resolutions I just dropped my stuff off in the room, changed clothes, and went for a long walk. I really enjoy being in the mix. Of course I stood out because I look different but also because to the folks there it was cold (about 75 degrees) so I’m sure they were thinking, “who is this crazy guy in shorts and why is he just bumbling along looking at everything.” I smiled or gave the head nod everyone who looked at me. It seemed as though as soon as I acknowledged them they lost interest. Sort of like, “Ohh, just a regular ole dude.” Everyone was pretty tired so we just ate and went back to our rooms. A bell hop came by passing out water and I tried making small talk but he spoke waay to fast for me. Tuesday We all ate breakfast in the hotel and the waiters all remembered me. I made some small talk with them. When we got to the office, all of the Mexican team that was going to be helping us out for the meetings was there. I greeted everyone I knew and shared a few laughs. One of the Americans who was sitting next to me asked, “Do you know everyone down here?” I am a personable guy, but more than that, I’m the only one who is seriously trying to learn the language. We got down to business and worked through lunch all in English. After lunch I dropped off all the things I bought for the guys and we settled up on the bill. Everyone but one guy had their money ready. One guy paid me in like $15 of change. It was kinda funny. When you go to another country often change just builds up in a jar or something and you just looking for a reason to get rid of it. We continued working and I got to meet a lot of the product engineers for other customers. The same thing would happen each time. We would look at the parts try to explain something and there would be some confusion. I’d say something in Spanish to break the log jam and then people would start asking me questions. “When did you start learning, why, how, you’re doing good, try to say this word.” To me it’s still pretty magical. I just make these sounds and people respond to them. It hasn’t completely sunk in that I’m just talking, nothing special. That night I went for my walk and was hit up by a few kids begging. One of them was asking for 1 peso which is about a 8 cents. I just started laughing and was going to say, “Kid you need to work on your hustle, ask for more,” but I couldn’t think of the words fast enough to be smooth with it. We ended up going to a pretty cool bar for a guy’s birthday gathering. I ignored my own advice (from the accident in Durango) and went with the younger crowd. I’m glad I did. The alternative was to hang with the older guys at the same steakhouse we always go to. The bar was fun. It was kind of a Nascar theme and the faucet in the bathroom was a gas nozzle from a gas station. I ordered the heart attack plate. Bascially everything on there was brown (from being fried) or electric orange (from the cheese). It was sooo good. My wife is a real healthy eater so I know she probably felt a sharp pain in her side when I took my first bite. We proceeded to drunkify ourselves and just talk about anything but work. It’s fun to hang out with co-workers outside of the stuffy environment of work. It’s especially so when you’re with another culture. Seeing the shy person with the soft voice yelling “Another BEER!!!” is pretty cool. I was the dad of our side of the long table since I could speak the language. I made sure everyone was eating and drinking what they liked then sign language could take over. Don’t need to be able to talk when you can just lift up your empty bottle and point to it. After the bar we stopped at another bar/restaurant by the hotel for one last round. There the convo got serious about work and career aspirations. We saw a birthday party and at this place the waiters don’t just come over and sing a song. They make you take a shot then pick you up and spin around. It was something to see. After one round we walked to the hotel and went to sleep. Wednesday This was our last full day. I was pretty tired from the night before and feeling alittle sick. I went to the production floor and had a bunch of conversations with the section leaders in Spanish and a few of them gave me candy to try. It was really good, but different. All kinds of spices and some sort of jelly with a seed in the middle. There was an owl on the package. If anyone reading this knows what I ate, let me know. The rest of the day was pretty busy and I tried to speak English as much as possible to be fair to the folks that are trying to learn English. I saw my buddy who I wrote about the other day. He didn’t come to the hotel and drink with us. I don’t know if he was scared of what, but being scared will get you nowhere. I really need to focus on my pronunciation. I messed up a bunch of words that turned into funny sayings. I was trying to say, “I was doing that to save my ass.” I wasn’t pronouncing right so instead of save, ahorrar, I said drown, ahogar. Everyone was like, “what?!? Why would you want to drown your ass???” They were laughing at me. I just hit them with my usual response with buddies. “ I said save. Don’t you know Spanish” ha! I had about 5 more instances of people being confused and laughing at me. It’s all good though. I was invited to a wedding that was last Saturday but I couldn’t re-arrange my schedule to make it. Would have been a lot of fun. The guy who invited me is known as Miguel, “the where are you, “ guy. I think I mentioned him before, (he’s the one who had a lot to drink one night and his English went bye bye. He looked straight at me and said, “Hermon… Where are you?!??” I was like, “uhhh, right here. Unless I’m invisible. In that case lets go to the bank.’) I head that the wedding was a great time. I will try to let everyone down there know my travel schedule way in advance so that they can let me know about weekend events and I can book my travel accordingly. By Wednesday evening I was feeling kind of tired and alittle lonely. It was my 6th wedding anniversary and I was in Mexico. Some guys wanted to go out and party hard, but I just wasn’t in the mood for that. I ended going out with 3 other people to a karaoke bar. We ended up having a great time. I like when they take to me to do regular, fun things. I went to be in the mix of things and see how the people just hang out. I got a few stares when we walked in but after that I was just one of the people who were drinking, eating chicken wings, and signing off tune. The dj gave the microphone to me and asked where I was from, then a coworker and I sang a song. I was doing pretty well with the pronunciation but I didn’t know the melody so I was butchering the song. It was great fun. We also went to the top of the mountain in town with a beautiful view. It was makeout central. One thing I’ve noticed is that Americans are prudish when it comes to public displays of affection. Thursday We went into the office and did some final reviewing. I took some time to hang out with the guys on the plant floor and make some small talk with a few operators. I’ve noticed that there are more boundaries between different job levels. I was raised to acknowledge everyone I see from the CEO to the sweeper. Sometimes I think that gets misconstrued as something more than it is. A guy asked me if I liked the lady janitor just because I said, “hi, good morning.” I’m glad he asked me though. Now I know and knowing is half the battle. (Yo Joe!! Haha, I had to put that in there for all the people who grew up in the 80’s.) When in Rome I need to do as the Romans do. I said my goodbyes and made a few jokes in Spanish and it was time to go. Another good trip. I think I will be going back in late April or early May. Ohh yea my wife asked me to start speaking Spanish to her so she can learn. That’s pretty cool because I’ve heard if you can teach something, you really have it down. She already knows a fair amount of French so I don't think she'll have to work as hard as I have. Edited by HermonMunster on 05 February 2013 at 4:29am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 42 of 154 13 February 2013 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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Hey everyone,
I'm just about finished with platiquemos. I've finished the audio part and I'm on unit 50 on the reading. I'm really excited to be done with this. It's been a long journey, but it has taken me so far. The lessons aren't really hard anymore. I liked having something to listen to during my commute and walks during lunch. Just about time to move on to bigger and better things. newsinslowspanish is next along with reading the monthy edition of Que Pasa, the local Spanish newspaper. I hit a Spanish milestone yesterday. One of my co-workers asked me how to say an English word by asking completely in Spanish. I was thinking, "whoa, he didn't even switch into English to talk to me." Another guy called me and said, "Herm, no more English, we're going to do this in Spanish." Then he proceeded to talk so fast that we had to switch back to English. lol I'm very comfortable with writing in Spanish and my speaking is getting better. Unfortunately it seems as though all my business trip coincide with my Spanish meet ups. It's all good though. I'm trying to schedule a trip to mexico for a design review. If everything works out there will be time for a fishing trip. I've never been game fishing before so it should be great. (it's catch an release for the Big fish, the smaller ones will be released into some heat, oil, spices and then my stomach!!!) Also I'm looking forward to using my language skills in a different scenario. Now that I know most of the people in the plant and the hotel, I don't really have experiences where I have to adapt to an individual's unique way of speaking. Sometimes I feel like I'm kind of profiling people to see if they speak Spanish and want to speak with me. When I'm in need of a person to help me with Spanish during the day, I just send an instant messenge to whoever is online at the time. I start out with the pleasantries then, "do you have time for a quick Spanish lesson?" I haven't gotten a no yet. I had a funny chat about the word for snack. A lady told me what it was and I tried to use it in a sentence. "I'm going to eat an orange for a snack." She replied, "No, an orange isn't a snack." We had a good laugh because Spanish is alot like English. You really can't call it a snack if it's good for you. Also she used a term for junk food, but it came out more like garbage food. Kind of a better way to put it. Junk food has been used for so long that it's not too hard on the ears. Garbage food makes you think twice. My wife is in NYC right now for business and her first text to me was, "I NEED TO LEARN Spanish NOW!" Ohh I also found out that our downstairs neighbors are from the Dominican Republic. My wife invited them up for tea and we're trying to set the date. It should be a good time. I think that Mark Zuckerberg and facebook have killed the word "friend." It used to mean so much but now it's tossed around so casually. I find it kind of sad. For anyone who is trying to learn a language, just be a friend to a person who knows your target language. I know that I'm fortunate to work with a bunch of Spanish speakers, but I've put forth the effort to learn about their lives and just be a friend. For example, a lady I met last year in Durango just got a huge promotion. She's in charge of a major customer. When I got the notice I immediately wrote to her, not to run some game and try to extract Spanish units from her, but because I was acutally happy for her. I think she's kinda overwhelmed with it all and I'm sure it felt good for her to hear someone say, "congrats, you can do it!" I've done some reading recently on how many words a person needs to be fluent. There are many strong opinions ranging from 1,000 to "that's a stupid question to ask." My goal is to be professionally fluent. So it's looking like I'll need at least 10,000 to even get close. That's fine by me, I figure that will take about 2 or 3 more years. But as far as being able to handle my self and say, for the most part, what I want. I'm good. I definitely need more vocab so today I downloaded the 5000 most used words in Spanish. I'm also always running words by my coworkers to see if the words from platiquemos are still used. They make fun of me for saying almorzar for lunch and culebra for snake. "No body says that man." Ohh yea, I was able to insert learning Spanish into my quarterly evaluation. So 10% of my bonus (if the company is doing well enough to give one) is based on something I was going to do no matter what. Weeeeeee! The squeeky wheel gets the grease. Edited by HermonMunster on 13 February 2013 at 2:53am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 43 of 154 14 February 2013 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
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Great post. You are lucky your wife is interested. I am jealous. I am in a constant struggle to bribe my wife to do anything related to Spanish... I am currently trying to convince her it might be a good idea to go to a resort in Cancun. I cannot believe she is so resistant to the idea. When I try to convince her to go to Cancun her response is to say no and to appease me by making tacos for dinner!!
Regarding being professionally proficient, that was always one of my big goals as I would like to be able to do my job for customers who speak only Spanish. I have been doing it lately and have not had any problems. I think you won't need too much more work other than maybe some specialized vocabulary. I found that once my listening comprehension went up a bit it was not too hard to do my job in Spanish... it was too hard when I would have to repeatedly ask people to repeat themselves or tell them I did not understand. It sounds to me like you are almost there. On total number of words necessary... if you have fully done FSI and a couple courses like Assimil basic and advanced you should be fine in terms of words. 10,000 seems like way too many and 5,000 is likely plenty... but, you are right... you will get different opions from every different person. Now... getting to a point of being able to understand fluently is a little tougher. good luck. edit: I should say that there is a big difference in number of words necessary when you are talking in terms of active or passive. a big passive vocabulary is VERY helpful. Edited by James29 on 14 February 2013 at 10:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 44 of 154 15 February 2013 at 7:22pm | IP Logged |
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Hey James. Sorry you wife isn't interestd in the language. I know it must be tough to have something that you want to share and the other perosn is ho-hum about it. I'm glad to hear that you can do your job in Spanish. That's a major accomplishment. On the number of words it seems like 10,000 is alot but I think the people who came up with that number were including variants like accomplish, accomplishment, accomplished as different words. I'm picking up a bunch of words just by trying to live my life in Spanish or just taking a moment everyday, just looking around me, and thinking what's the Spanish word for everything that I can see.
I had a funny thing happen yesterday. One of my mexican male coworker sent and email and closed with Happy Valentine's Day. I had to explain to him that in the US guys don't say that to eachother unless they really want you to be their valentine. He replied, "ohh that's not what I meant, every day I learn something new about Americans." We had a good laugh and i told him to please correct me when I say something in Spanish that isn't quite right. He complemented me by saying that my Spanish is getting better but I still have to work on my syntax. Slowly but surely I'm getting it down. Ohh yea an american co-worker was forwarded an email that I sent in Spanish. After work yesterday he complimented me on my Spanish. We spoke for about 10minutes on the topic. He was really impressed that I've only been at it for less that a year. He's been lightly studying for years and even went to a month long class in Mexico and I'm waaaay better than him. There are 2 things that I think cause the difference between us. 1. personality. He's kind of shy so he would never try my "hi i'm trying to learn Spanish.." approach 2. He's not serious about it. I'll have over 900 hrs of study logged in my first year. No way he studies/practices a quarter of that time. I've recently made a deal with one of the engineers in Mexico. We will only converse in English and I will correct their grammer. If something is really complex I'll write it in English and Spanish. It's fun to help someone learn and would be a shame for either one of us to work together for years and not learn eachothers language. It only takes time and effort. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 45 of 154 26 February 2013 at 4:43am | IP Logged |
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1 year in the books.
This week makes 1 year of studying Spanish. I’m really proud of myself. Trying to learn has been challenging, fun, boring, tedious, exhilarating and so much more. I had a 2.5hr drive to do today and I spent almost all of it listening to newsinslowspanish dot com episodes. I think the information will drive home some of the part of platiquemos that I haven't quite mastered yet. I'm traveling now so I can't access my study file, but I'm guessing that i put in a little bit more than 900hrs. studying in the past year. Pimsleur I-III and pretty much all of platiquemos.(I finished all the listening and I'm on unit 51 of the written). I've made new friend through the Spanish meet up that I attend and I've made a ton of acquaintances. I'm the only engineer in my company who has ever made a serious attempt at learning the language and my coworkers love me for it. Today I went to a Mexican restaurant that I haven't been to in about 4 months. Everyone there remembered me. We had some good, short conversations. "Happy new year, was santa good to you?" Anyone who reads this and is afraid to talk to people in Spanish, you have to go to a Mexican restaurant and just try it out. I think that 99% of the time, people will be gracious and chat with you a bit. I think the key is make connections with people. Everyone has a story that's waiting to be told. Although we speak different languages, so much is the same. I'm to the point now where I can start to have fun with people, tell jokes, ask good questions, and just communicate. I still have to ask people to speak slower and some days my brain just doesn't work, but I'm getting there. I think that I will be where I want to be in 2 more years. I just have to keep hitting it hard like I have been for the last year and find ways to keep it fun. I know 2152 words according to my flash cards, but the real number is probably closer to 3000 when you factor in all the things that I didn't load into the program because I already knew them. The real key is to get while the getting's good. I don't know how much longer I will be at my present job where I'm working with Mexicans all day, or have the ability to go to Mexican multiple times per year, but I'm going to make the most of it while I can. I'm very fortunate in that whenever I have a question, the answer is just an instant message or phone call away. I make it a point not to bug the same people all the time and try to trade them with some English lessons. Even if I can't pay them in English, I more than compensate them for their time through laughter. Often times I'll say something crazy without meaning to and they'll laugh so hard and tell the whole office. (it's a good thing i have thick skin) I think my questions make them really curious. Once I sent a message asking, "How do you say, 'don't F@#& with me!'" He told me and then was asking, "who are you going to say that to??" Then I would say it to him. hahaha! I don't know if I ever mentioned the guy I met who was an indirect inspiration to learn Spanish. He's a 50 something guy who lost his job in the recession, started a business with 401k money, the business failed, he lost his home/property, tried to switch careers and is having trouble getting hired at his age at an entry level position. He had to move back in with his parents who are almost 80 years old! I felt so bad for him when he told me the story. After that conversation I made a vow to myself to not let that happen to me. I think that knowing Spanish will make me extremely valuable and marketable in the future. peace Edited by HermonMunster on 26 February 2013 at 4:56am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 46 of 154 28 February 2013 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
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I just had my first phone call in Spanish! One of my co-workers called me needing some information. He tends to think I know more Spanish than I do. He started off in Spanish and I just switched over and we had a quick conversation. It was pretty cool because the language was just flowing. We were talking about a deviation on a drawing and the differences between 2 revision levels. I really suprised myself. Horray!
My accent is getting alot better too. I think my accent throws people off. They are probably thinking, "Alright, we're about to talk some Spanish!" (or something like that) then they're like, "Ohh, he's not that good." lol I'm pretty sure that I will be going back to Mexico in April and maybe in March for a quick visit. I need to learn a song in Spanish so I hold my own if we do kareoke again. It should be an interesting trip because we need to talk about some issues that are making alot of people angry. It could be the first time I yell in Spanish. There are sooooo many words to learn. Being an engineer probably adds an extra 500 words and phrases that I have to learn. Screw, bolt, crimp, splice, retension force.. etc. Slowly but surely I'll get it. I learned some slang today and I'm glad the guy explained that it's kinda vulgar. Recently I heard a story of a European executive who learned English from the wrong people. Instead of using, "um, uhh" as a filler, he learned "Sh^t and F*&@#." The guy told me that he gave the funniest speech ever. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 47 of 154 01 March 2013 at 2:25am | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on the one year mark! You are WAY ahead of where I was at one year. Have you thought through your plans for the next year?
Arguing with someone in Spanish for the first time is kind of cool. My first time was an argument with a taxi driver in Ecuador who was ripping me off. I'll never forget it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 48 of 154 04 March 2013 at 6:05am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the congrats James. I appreciate it. Reading your log gave me alot of motivation when I first got started and it still gives me skill levels to strive for.
The theme for my second year is "Operation Chatterbox." I'm going to push myself to talk to anyone and everyone who I think speaks Spanish. I'm also going to work the newsinslowspanish dot com website. I've already done about 5 lessons and they are great. They are helping to give me an ear for the language along with plenty of examples of how to words in context. They've already blown my mind with irregular conjugations. It never occurred to me that since Spanish is a mostly phonetic language, stems changes are used to maintain the same sound. Ex. atacar changing to ataque. The only thing that I don't like so much is that it's Spanish from Spain. I don't want to develop a Spanish accent. I've heard from several buddies that it sounds kind of stuck up to some people in Mexico. I'm already different enough; I won't want to add lisp sounds too. I will continue doing the Spanish meetup and of course write all my emails (except for the most important) in Spanish. I can write much better than I speak, which I think is great for what I want to do. The speaking will come naturally through my everyday interactions, but writing takes dedicated practice to get it right. I was really surprised when a co-worker who speaks really well asked me to review an email before he sent it. It almost had so many problems that it was incomprehensible. I couldn't believe it. I know writing and speaking are both important, but I think writing kicks speaking's butt. The reason being that talking has the most power while the words are being spoken (assuming it's not recorded) whereas writing could last forever. If I had to choose, I would much rather have someone read my writing and then be underwhelmed by my speaking than the other way around. Other than my travel experiences, this has been my best week for Spanish yet. First a coworker called me early one morning. I was thinking, "Ohh great. I wonder what's wrong now," but he was calling to ask me how to say, "Get your a$# out of bed now!" lol I guess he wanted to say that to a lady he's dating. I taught him how to say it and he walked into the bedroom (while I was still on the phone), says it, and she just starts laughing so hard. It was a fun way for me to start the work day. Later it sunk in that it was my first time that someone asked me to translate something for them. Pretty cool, eventually I want to be one of the go-to guys for that. We have a few native speakers who are Americans so they will always be better than me, but I can be a backup. The second thing happened yesterday. I drove my wife to a meeting and had about 4hrs to kill until the meeting was over. I went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch called Pueblo Viejo. It really was an old house that was converted into a restaurant. I was kinda nervous walking to the door b/c it looked way more like a house than I expected. I got seated and when the waiter came by I did my usual move, "Hey, I'm trying to learn Spanish, let's only talk in Spanish." Of course, he said ok and I ordered the special of the day. The food was great and the service was good. When I was finished eating, he stopped by and chatted with me for a bit. I told him why I was learning and some other stuff. When I went to pay I got to talking to the owner in Spanish. He was a really cool guy and we ended up chatting for about 30mins. We talked about everything, his family, where he's from, the cultural differences, the health care system etc. I really enjoyed myself. I'm in relatively good health so I'm not really thinking about operations and stuff, but from what he told me, I may do some travel surgeries if I ever need something done in the future. He got a hernia surgery done in Mexico for about $150 where it would have been about $5,000 here in the US. I still had some time to kill so I went to another Mexican restaurant to have a beer. I tried to talk to one guy in Spanish, but he was American and his Spanish wasn't that good. The last thing that happened was today. I went to a cafeteria to buy some dinner and about 50% of the servers are hispanic. One lady remembered that I had asked for something in Spanish when I visited about a month ago. She asked me a question and I jumped right into speaking Spanish. She was from Honduras and the lady in charge of the drinks is from Mexico. We talked for about 5minutes about their home towns and why I was learning etc. Very fun. They were both really happy that I was trying to learn their language. One lady felt so comfortable talking to me that she hit me with that million words per minute Spanish. I was like, "uhhh, much slower please." The cashier didn't speak Spanish but she said, "You're speaking that Spanish really good." I told her that she should learn and that I would be easy because she has 10 teachers who work with her every day. She said that she didn't have time for that and I countered with, "just try to learn 1 thing every day. Start with phrases, you know, things that you wish you could say to your co-workers like, 'leave me alone, I'm having a bad day, come help me and things like that." She thought that was a decent idea. While I was eating I felt really great about my Spanish adventure and was extremely happy that I started this journey. I'm having alot more fun than I thought I would bu I still have a long way to go before I can fully say what's on my mind. I'm picking up alot of new vocabulary through everyday life and still asking co-workers to teach me how to say stuff. Google translate will get you messed up pretty bad. Make sure you already have an idea of what you're trying to say before you plug anything into it. I asked how to say "don't make me" and when I got an answer I put it into google and got "do not you stick around." I was laughing to myself thinking, "google... wtf... you're not even trying." But now I know how to say a good phrase. If you combine some gestures along with "don't make me do it," you can pretty much get the point across. Don't quit guys, learning a language gets really fun after a while. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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