So we’ve finally begun Spanish lessons. We’ve pieced together quite a bit of Spanish already; we know enough about constructing sentences and connecting words that we could easily travel around and get by with a dictionary in hand. However, without a formal class with some grammar, we’re in danger of becoming Pidgin-Spanish gringos, who speak only in the present tense and guess at words by adding an “o” onto their English equivalents: “Donde esta el traino stationo?”
Our teacher is the Middle School Principal, Carmen Cecilia, who teaches us along with four other foreign teachers in her house after school. Our first lesson was mainly focussed on filthy words. This wasn’t because of naughty pressure from us or some perverted fascination on her part, but because that day she had realized that the Grade 8 boys had been calling their teachers all kinds of dirty words without them knowing. Imagine an angelic-faced child politely smiling as he approaches an English teacher to shake her hand and then saying “Good morning, you bastard” in Spanish, while the other students desperately try to hold on to their sides. Eventually some of them felt bad for the teachers and told Carmen, who responded that the teachers, in fact, DID understand, and hastily cobbled together our Spanish lesson that evening. No one will ever be able to call me “ass-face,” “bastard,” “son of a bitch,” “huge balls,” or my personal favourite, "gonorrhoea” ever again without getting tossed in the principal’s office. Oh well, I guess it was fun while it lasted.
Maybe next class we can learn some vocabulary words for going to the bank or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment