Hablo what?
Looking for a way to pass my commute to work more productively, I borrowed a "Speak Spanish Instantly!" set of cassettes from the library. "No books, no written exercises, no drills!" It says on the cover. And I can say without qualification that it works. After only two hours of intent listening and repeating to the recorded conversations, I can now tell people in fluent Spanish that, "I do not speak Spanish."
I relate this story via e-mail to Sarah and she, being this freak of human nature who has apparently, I am beginning to learn, studied every discipline on the planet, writes back in part:
Hola! Me llamo espanol pequeno. Estudie espanol para seis anos. Pero, cuando yo estudie el colegio, yo pare.
Don't ask me what that means because I do not know. (She had me at Hola!) "That was Spanish, right?" I reply. "I'm gonna have to take your word for that." I am, as usual, impressed and tell her so. Then I go for the cutesy ending:
Buenas noches!
(I think. If I just swore at you or recited a Mexican restaurant entree, I meant something else.)
Please tell me that that was at least minimally amusing. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels here and it's starting to depress me. Maybe this girl has such an dazzling array of talents that impressing her is going to take more than I have. "So you listened to some cassettes in your car? I took Spanish for six years! So you had four piano lessons and picked up the rest by ear? I was classically trained for a decade! And on.
There's probably more to my blahs than that. But that's enough to sort through right now.
Crap.
I relate this story via e-mail to Sarah and she, being this freak of human nature who has apparently, I am beginning to learn, studied every discipline on the planet, writes back in part:
Hola! Me llamo espanol pequeno. Estudie espanol para seis anos. Pero, cuando yo estudie el colegio, yo pare.
Don't ask me what that means because I do not know. (She had me at Hola!) "That was Spanish, right?" I reply. "I'm gonna have to take your word for that." I am, as usual, impressed and tell her so. Then I go for the cutesy ending:
Buenas noches!
(I think. If I just swore at you or recited a Mexican restaurant entree, I meant something else.)
Please tell me that that was at least minimally amusing. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels here and it's starting to depress me. Maybe this girl has such an dazzling array of talents that impressing her is going to take more than I have. "So you listened to some cassettes in your car? I took Spanish for six years! So you had four piano lessons and picked up the rest by ear? I was classically trained for a decade! And on.
There's probably more to my blahs than that. But that's enough to sort through right now.
Crap.
posted by jack at 9:43 PM
2 Comments:
Ay dios mio!!!
If you haven't looked it up already, she said. "Hello. I speak spanish a little. I studied for 6 years, but when I went to college I stopped."
(I took 8 years of Spanish, 5 years of French (and dated a guy who spoke it fluently)...I love foreign languages!)
Anyway in response to a couple of things in your post...Your "Buenas Noches" response was cute. and it's good you told her that you were impressed.
As for impressing her...don't sweat it too much. Women are impressed by various things - some of which aren't obvious. Being sweet and flirty should probably be enough!
I took French in high school. Now, of course, the few French words I can remember pop out of my mouth when I'm trying to say Spanish ones.
Languages fascinate me too. I love the idea of communicating with someone without speaking English.
In high school we had to learn how to spell our names in American sign language. I went ahead and learned the entire alphabet. It would take a while but I could talk to a deaf person.
And, yes, I'm going to have to get by on charm and wit because that's about my only angle left!
Post a Comment
<< Home