Spanish

Nothing to do with Spain, I know.

I know that there is plenty of great Spanish literature to explore, and I have already discovered some fine contemporary Spanish novels, but I can’t seem to avoid American culture in translation. Last night I suffered through a dubbed movie about Joan of Arc originally titled, The Messenger, I believe. I watch this tripe simply to improve my oral comprehension. I have watched worse stuff on TV here in the name of learning. I serendipitously happened upon Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses translated into Spanish as I was browsing the stacks in the library the other day.

This is one of my favorite novels and I’ve probably read it in English at least three times. The English version has so much un-translated Spanish in it that I think that it would be fairly annoying to read if you didn’t know quite a bit of that language; I also though that it would be interesting to read a Spanish translation. Almost the entire novel is set in Mexico and McCarthy probably would have preferred to write it in Spanish. I spent nearly five hours at a table in the library yesterday finishing the last 120 pages or so of Todos los Hermosos Caballos. It is a book I would highly recommend in any language.

I read a lot slower in Spanish than English but I’m improving every day. My vocabulary is growing. I wish that it would grow faster but no matter how hard I try to cram words into my head, my brain seems to have its own system for retaining the new language. Some words that I come across I seem to absorb immediately, nouns mostly, while adjectives and odd verbs take a lot more effort. I’ve learned two different words to scare away your horse (espantar, ahuyentar) and two words to break a horse (domar, amansar). You never know when those might come in handy. I’ve already forgotten but I may have come across the word for “pigsty” while reading the McCarthy novel. I remember writing it down in my notebook. I almost screamed out loud when the Spanish word, “pocilga,” came up in the Messenger last night and I actually remembered it. It’s the little victories that you must savor because the war of learning another language is long and filled with frustrations.

All of the movies dubbed into Spanish here use a Spanish accent as opposed to Latin American Spanish. I have been working very hard to beat the old accent out of my head and replace it with Castilian Spanish. Instead of pronouncing the sounds for S, Z, and C as an S sound as they do in Latin America, I am switching to the lisping pronunciation for the Z and C (plus vowel) as they do here. It is much less ambiguous and, to my ear, more refined. I also live here now so I see no reason to cling to the way I originally learned Spanish. Latin American who live here stick to their pronunciation, much like I would cling to American English if I lived in Britain, but since I am still learning I may as well as do as the Romans do.

One reason why I like to read contemporary Spanish literature is that it gives me a feel for the way people here speak. I have also noticed that the few books that I have read in translation are geared towards European Spanish. Although McCarthy’s book is set in Mexico, the vernacular is from Spain, or it is explained to Spanish readers, or put in italics if it is a Mexican word.

I read at least one newspaper every day and I can get through most of the articles without a dictionary. If I do have to look up a word it is usually a flowery synonym of a word I do know that is being used in the headline simply to draw attention to the piece. I almost never even bother with a dictionary when I am reading the paper, I’ll just jot down an unfamiliar word and look it up later.

Overall, I would say that I am fairly unhappy with my Spanish. I need more days like yesterday where I spend hours and hours reading, and then more hours listening, followed by a few hours of conversation. Maybe after another year or so filled with days saturated with Spanish I will feel like I am getting somewhere with this language.