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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Paco's new DVD (Dec. 14 2011 19:47:08)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rumbaking
Ramzi,
My friend...I know what you need....a hot blooded hispanic girlfriend.....hahaha
Ah, yes, the always reliable "bedtime dictionary". But in Spain I have been told once or twice that it sounds like I learned Spanish in Central America.
"Central America?" I asked. "Where in Central America?"
"Pues...este, en realidad, en México."
In fact I spent as much time as a child and youth in the house of the ranch foreman in South Texas, educated Mexican American people, as I did in my grandparents' house. Their son, two days younger than I, who earned a Masters Degree from Texas A&M, now retired from being the foreman himself, was my best friend during the summers I spent on the ranch. Of the twenty-two families who lived on the ranch, mine was the only one who spoke English at home.
When we were driving from Jerez to Granada a couple of years ago, Larisa had the radio on in the car. We were in Madrid for a few days before heading to Andalucia. I had navigated the tourist stuff OK in Spanish, but it had been 20-odd years since I had heard Spanish on a regular basis. I couldn't understand a word the guy said on the radio.
"Well, I've finally lost it," I thought.
Then, click! like a switch being thrown, everything was suddenly perfectly clear.
When we got to Granada, I carried on a conversation with the nice university student who was working part time at the little nine-room hotel when we arrived.
When we got to the room, Larisa said, with a smile, "You really can speak Spanish!" as though she may have had her doubts about it.
She doesn't speak Spanish, but she's fluent in Italian, Russian, German and English. With her Italian she can often follow a Spanish conversation fairly well.
I still have trouble sometimes with Andaluz. But to my admittedly rusty ear, on the Paco DVD, everyone speaks fairly clearly, in standard Castilian. None of them bite on their consonants like a Madrid TV announcer, but they don't speak impenetrable Andaluz like a lot of flamencos.
RNJ
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