learning a third language

-
I have always loved to be able to converse in a third language, may it be Spanish (undubbed telenovelas), Mandarin (the new business language), or Italian (yummy food). My recent trips to the uni have exposed me to French (as I stayed in a French couple's terrace house and there were many French students in the lab). Plus, I always am amazed at how smoothly my academic supervisor can talk with me in English, answer the phone in Italian, leave a message in German, and talk in French to a BSc Hons student… all in the span of five minutes!

I figured, since Filipino has lots of Spanish influence, I might as well start learning it. My main reference is a Lonely Planet language book (which covers most of Europe’s major languages). Plus, I bought another book on learning Spanish.

That was a luck move, because this week, I got to meet numerous people from South America, where Spanish is the official language. Despite all the preparations I had, my Spanish vocabulary was still in a horrible state, but they didn’t seem to mind.

It all started at the workshop of the International Network for Quality Rice (INQR). I approached Mr. Cuba because I heard him speaking in Spanish and I wanted to practice all the Spanish words from all that exposure to books, CDs, and telenovelas.

Early today, as I was walking into the lecture hall, he was greeting me in rapid fire Spanish. When I blankly stared at him, hablo espanol muy pocito, he told me to go to practice so that when I go to Havana, I could talk with them fluently.

Then there’s Ms. Uruguay and Ms. Colombia who called me Paula the whole time! Mi llamo Rochie.

During the field tour, they could not understand some of the English words of the guide. So I had to dig deep through the mishmash of Spanish words I know. No rattas, no aves. Agua embotellada? Fotografia. Ritratto de quadrado.

Hence, I have now decided that I would learn how to speak in Spanish.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more