Richard Jernigan -> RE: Late night shop drawings (Mar. 4 2015 4:46:44)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana She sings at least as good as Jernigan! In Granada a few years ago I chatted with the university student who was watching the small hotel while the owner was out running errands. We were the only guests at the moment. Larisa had heard me handling tourist stuff, but it was the first time she had heard me at any length in Spanish. With her fluent Italian she could follow along pretty well, and speak a little Spanish. She smiled and said, "You actually can speak Spanish!" The university student politely added, "Yes. He speaks very well." "Does he sound like a Spaniard?" "I think he may have learned Spanish in...Central America." "Where in Central America?" asked Larisa, sensing a possible polite prevarication. "....perhaps, Mexico?" Being told in Spain that you speak like a Mexican is like being told by a posh Englishman that you sound like an Australian. Larisa noted my brief, slight smile and looked inquisitive. "Like an educated Mexican," the student hastened to add. The student, though she said she was born and raised in Granada, put thetas (lisped S's) everywhere a Salamancan would have, and had not a trace of the distinctive rhythm of andalĂș. Her meter was dignified and sententious castellano. I wondered how long it had taken her to achieve that. At Palau in the 1990s my friend and I dove at Fish 'n Fins. Francis Toribiong had just sold it to an Israeli couple who had been running a live-aboard dive boat there for three years. The Israeli woman drove us back to our hotel, which was a little way out of town. She mentioned they had spent time in Spain. My friend said I spoke Spanish. The Israeli woman addressed me, I replied. She exclaimed in English, "But you speak just like an American! We learned to speak like the Spanish!" My friend observed quietly, "I have always admired the Israelis for their diplomacy and tact." One of these days I will spend a winter in Salamanca to acquire castellano, and solidify my image in Latin America as a supercilious twit. RNJ
|
|
|
|