Just a quick note to say that we have a new beginners level Spanish podcast at Notesinspanish.com. The podcast is called (and aimed at!) Inspired Beginners, and aims to bring you real Spanish language and conversations to help you race ahead in your Spanish studies. More details over at Notes in Spanish.com!
It only occurred to me halfway through my dinner that I might have a split personality thing going on. Left alone for the evening I didn’t rustle up a very British Bangers and Mash but, instead, and without a second thought, prepared myself Chorizo sausage in white wine… and mash! Nothing wrong with a good bit of Chorizo al Vino, but with mashed potato? Surely neither the true Spaniard nor the true Brit would go for that combination, but to my culturally schizoid mind it was absolutely delicious.
It’s not the first sign of the confusion of my cultural roots: when one old friend realised she had lost my email address recently, she was quite surprised to discover that I came out in the top spot when Googling for Spanish Ben!
Where will it all end?
ETA says their ceasefire with Spain and the Spanish government will end at 00.00 hours tomorrow, Wednesday, when they shall return to a defense of their principles with arms. Zapatero’s government is blamed.
Oh well, balls to optimism then. When ETA announced their ceasefire in March last year I, for one, was optimistic. After all, don’t we live in an age where, in politically advanced democracies, internal terrorism just doesn’t seem like a viable option any more? Changing attitudes since 9/11 and all that… How sorry I was then, when that ceasefire was originally announced, to see so many Spaniards on the TV declaring that this was just another smokescreen, that it was a meaningless gesture that wouldn’t last a year. Yet how right the pessimists, or perhaps they are realists, were. Where oh where does the process go from here?
Links:
December’s Barajas airport bombing obviously didn’t bode well.
BBC: Eta to end ceasefire with Spain
20minutos.com: ETA anuncia en un comunicado que da por finalizado el alto el fuego
3 years ago my youngest sister arrived in Spain for a 12 month Erasmus study abroad program with little or no Spanish. Within months she was teaching Marina who, of course, is as Spanish as you can get, new words and phrases she’d never come across before. Part of her secret ‘learn Spanish sickeningly fast’ recipe involved sitting up in bed at night reading through the dictionary, picking out words that both fascinated her and later just stuck, for good. Sickening.
Anyway, much the same approach that my sister used to get ahead in Spanish could also be applied to Spanish culture, with Valerie Collins and Theresa O’Shea’s book In the Garlic. It’s an amusingly written A-Z of practically every aspect of Spanish culture you could begin to imagine, from Almuerzo (mid morning snacks) to Zara (Spanish version of Gap, sort of), via Chiringuito (beach-side or fiesta bar or restaurant/shack), Gilipuertas (polite version of Gilipollas – idiot) and Payo (gypsy term for non-gypsies). Apply my sister’s bedtime reading technique to this dictionary of Spain and you’ll soon be teaching Marina things she never knew about her own country!
But seriously, do you need this book? Well, here’s a little test. If you know what all of the following mean then you are definitely en el ajo (in the garlic = in the know) enough not to need it at all:
Llave inglesa, pataleo, piñata, selectividad, callista, dominguero, Ikastola.
How did you do? Definitions in the comments below please, and remember, if that little list completely stumped you, the book is available here!
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 