I have arrived at the house of David and Alejandrea Hinojosa. David is my Rotary host counsellor. They have been so lovely and welcoming, inviting their daughter and grandchildren over to meet me. Luckily my luggage arrived only 12 hours after I did!
Tomorrow it’s language test day at the institute. I’ve fallen back into Spanish pretty easily, in between the jetlaggy tired periods. I find that I can chat away well for an hour or two, until I get to a point where I need to use some difficult verb tenses, and then my brain just freezes.
1. Everything is spelled phonetically, so once you know the rules it’s virtually impossible to mispronounce a word.
2. The regional slang is brilliant. I suppose it’s the same with English, but I don’t notice it in my mother tongue. My absolute favourite word is the Chilean word for ‘mullet’ (the hairstyle): chocopanda. Chocopanda!
3. The word love, amor, is stronger than the English equivalent. We use it all the time, for everything: I love icecream, I love my cat, I love this song. In Spanish, amor is only used between people deeply in love.
Querer is used in many situations where we’d say love. It means to want, to like a lot, to care for. You can use it with friends or lovers. It’s kind of in between liking someone as a friend and feeling romantic love, and gives you the option of telling someone you like them a lot without having to pull out the L word.
Yet another, gustar, expresses that something is pleasing. Instead of the action being on you, “I like it”, it’s the thing that acts: “it pleases me.”
You know the story about Eskimoes and their many words for snow? What I love (heh) most about Spanish is that they need so many for expressions of caring and devotion. Says something about a culture, I think.
