Immersion

So, in my attempt aprender español (to learn Spanish) I am taking the immersion route. I'm living with a Guatemalan family, I'm attempting to read the Bible and comic books in Spanish, and now I'm listening to Spanish music! I don't know if that exclamation point is warranted, cause most of it is just ok ...


But in mi maestra's defense (she's the one who's been recommending artists to me), she's choosing music that's muy lento (very slow) so that I can pick out a few words here and there. But in reality she also likes this music :) Her first recommendation was Ricardo Arjona. It's pretty generic romantic pop. Normally I wouldn't listen to this kind of music, but it's not terrible. And it's kinda cool that Ricardo is Guatemalan. Next, she steered me toward Thalia and Alejandro Fernandez. Thalia is kind of ... I don't know ... kinda like what I imagine Shakira and Christina Aguilera sound like. Alejandro is Mexican, and it shows!


My favorite Spanish music is a band I found probably five years ago. They're called Entre Rios and they're from Argentina. My favorite song of theirs is Hoy No, which means "not today" ... still working on translating the rest of the song.

The more Spanish I learn, the more bold I get - by this I mean that I'm definitely more likely to fake it if I don't know it. Let me explain ... one of the cool things about Spanish is that a decent amount of the vocabulary is similar to English. For example, "caro" means "car," "normalmente" means "normally," "posibilidad" means "posibility," and "porciento" means "percent." So now, when I'm talking and I want to say a word I just add an "o" on the end, or maybe an "ente" or "idad". The crazy thing is that about 30-40% of the time it works everytime!



Erin also taught me an invaluable lesson about Spanish here in Guatemala ... That's right, it's so valuable that it's invaluable.



As I mentioned before, Antigua is fairly touristy - lots of gringos. And where there are tourists, there are people trying to sell them things. It's a law of nature - true the world over. Before, whenever I was approached in the street by someone wanting to sell me a necklace or blanket or whatever, I would always say "no, gracias." Then el vendedor (the salesman/woman) would proceed to suggest, "a gift for your mother? a gift for your sister? very good price!"

Erin has since informed me that instead of saying "no, gracias," you just say "gracias." The crazy thing is it works! Now I say "gracias" and they leave it at that! Who knew?! So remember that for when you come down to visit me :)

Check out this fountain that's at the center of el parque central! After I saw it a few times, I finally realized what was going on ... is that ... ? Are they ... ? Out of ... ? The answer to all of these questions is "yes." Hahaha!