Recently my (Spanish) friend César tagged all of his guiri friends, yours truly included, in a Facebook post with a link to the following Youtube video: "Qué difícil es hablar el español (Spanish is so difficult)."
Seeing that there are more than 1.3 million hits, maybe I'm little late in learning about this video. But I thought it was worth sharing, all 8:47 minutes of it (and I usually don't have patience for long YouTube videos).
These two native Spanish speakers' perform a tribute to learners, especially form North American learners, of Spanish. Sympathizing with us guiris, they go through a wide range of vocabulary differences among Spanish-speaking countries and demonstrate how difficult it can be to learn one language with so many variations. If you learn Spanish, they advise, "no te muevas de la región."
Having learned "textbook" Spanish in the States, I could really identify with this clip. Before coming to Spain, I had learn the language from profesores who were from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Chile and Argentina. Not to mention the numerous gringas mixed in there. As a result I had to adapt my own hybrid accent and decipher what vocabulary was appropriate in what class. And I thought that was difficult...when I moved to Spain I had to get used to a whooole new way of speaking.
I had to learn how to say my c's and z's with the theta sound without spitting everywhere. I had to forget formal ustedes learn the ever-confusing vosotros form. I had to learn to say zumo not jugo, ordenador instead of computadora, and that I was a guiri not a gringa. And I really had to get used to using the word coger without feeling like I was offending anyone.
So if you have ever walked in similar shoes, I would recommend watching this video.
My advice to a guiri: If you ever get frustrated with your Spanish, stop and consider this video. Even the Spanish-speakers admit it's difícil.
1 comment:
That video is fantastic! I've lived in Spain for almost 20 years now, and I consider myself fluent in Spanish, but I'm sure that if I were to go to any South American country, there would be lots of words I wouldn't understand. But that kind of happens in English too, just think about the differences between British English and American English.
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