Purangi's Log

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bolaobo
Orange Belt
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby bolaobo » Fri Apr 08, 2022 1:14 pm

Assimil goes the extra mile and everything is fully vocalized until lesson 28, after which endings are gradually omitted. The last lesson is supposed to be real MSA as spoken by “the Arab street”. I shadowed the first few lessons for a month, so I guess I probably sound like a weirdo now. And it’s funny how Assimil describes the Arabic rolled R as in “le R du Québec”. I am not sure that’s the most accurate parallel.


I don't know if I agree with the Assimil course gradually omitting endings. I've read Arabs' thoughts on this. and being able to use case endings is a sign of an educated speaker, because the average Arab isn't capable of it (just like an English speaker couldn't diagram a sentence) due to lack of practice. Of course, speaking like a book would make you sound weird, but I think it's something that's important to focus on early because it's much harder to pick up later.

I skimmed through this study and it seems to agree with my conjecture.


Case Endings in Spoken Standard Arabic
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Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Wed Apr 27, 2022 12:21 pm

bolaobo wrote:
Assimil goes the extra mile and everything is fully vocalized until lesson 28, after which endings are gradually omitted. The last lesson is supposed to be real MSA as spoken by “the Arab street”. I shadowed the first few lessons for a month, so I guess I probably sound like a weirdo now. And it’s funny how Assimil describes the Arabic rolled R as in “le R du Québec”. I am not sure that’s the most accurate parallel.


I don't know if I agree with the Assimil course gradually omitting endings. I've read Arabs' thoughts on this. and being able to use case endings is a sign of an educated speaker, because the average Arab isn't capable of it (just like an English speaker couldn't diagram a sentence) due to lack of practice. Of course, speaking like a book would make you sound weird, but I think it's something that's important to focus on early because it's much harder to pick up later.

I skimmed through this study and it seems to agree with my conjecture.

Case Endings in Spoken Standard Arabic


Thank you this precision and the study! For my part, I don't think I have the courage to go all the way to the last lesson of Assimil Arabe... Good luck in your study!
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Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Wed Apr 27, 2022 12:23 pm

(This post is the equivalent of sitting through someone’s Mexico vacation slideshow, but with a slight focus on language anecdotes. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!)

A few months ago I was looking for some inspiration for travel and found out about Paul Theroux’s latest book - On the Plain of Snakes, in which the author drives from the US border all the way to the Zapatista communities in Chiapas. I read it and found it good, although a bit uneven. But there are some really inspired and inspiring parts. The idea for this trip was born at that time, moving along an arc from the central Mexican highlands all the way to the tip of the Yucatan peninsula. We didn’t start at the US border, so we didn’t do the whole length of Mexico, but it was an honest attempt at seeing as much as possible in the time we had.

From the very start I promised myself I would speak only Spanish, or at the very least, I would initiate all conversations in Spanish

CANADA

-When checking in at the airport I saw the registration desk for Inuit Air, with a triple translation in French, English and Inuktikut. It was a nice surprise and I think the first time seeing the script “in the wild” in a commercial context (not in a museum).

GUANAJUATO

-We landed at CDMX and took three buses to finally reach our first destination: Guanajuato. We arrived right at the conclusion of Dia de las Flores and at the beginning of the Semana Santa. I had no idea, but it seems to be a pretty big deal in Mexico. Kids were dressed in angel costumes and whole families in “ropa formal” were singing catholic carols in front of the church. There were processions with big bands of horns and drums, people were carrying religious statues from church to church. Guanajuato itself is absolutely beautiful. It is a university town and you can feel it in the air. In terms of festive spirit, I couldn't have asked for more.

-The first few exchanges in Spanish were hard. I hesitated and I was searching for words. But the hardest part was not asking, it was understanding the answers. I committed a number of social “faux pas”, such as not answering when people asked me how I was, where I am from, etc. i would just stare at them, hoping they would repeat. Most people were nice and repeated again and again until I understood.

-Getting the right formalities at the right time was the most difficult for me. I found Mexicans to be (in general) extremely polite people, and they seemed to care very much about formalities when starting or ending a conversation. Although I knew exactly what to ask in terms of food or bus schedule, very often I had no idea how to start a conversation without sounding socially inept. I am afraid I was either too rude or too formal.

-My comprehension really depended on the person speaking. Taxi drivers spoke more clearly, or maybe they just had more time to repeat and explain what they meant. Restaurant staff was harder to understand, especially in small taquerias and street food stands. Most of the time, I didn’t want to burden them by asking them to repeat two-three times, so I just nodded and hoped for the best.

-In Guanajuato everyone was addressing us in Spanish. There were much fewer foreigners than I expected. My impression is that Mexico’s tourism industry outside Quintana Roo relies primarily on domestic tourists, which explains why so few English is seen on menus and in hotels. This was really good for me.

-During the first few days it felt like there was a short circuit in my brain. I wanted to speak Spanish, but I kept answering in Russian or Chinese. One waiter looked a bit confused when I thanked him with a very enthusiastic 谢谢!I don’t know why but I also kept trying to conjugate the Russian verb работать in Spanish. Работо, работа, работамос, работан? I said many times «No надо, no надо» to the ambulantes, which luckily for me sounds exactly like “No, nada”. It’s probably a side effect of having read some much news in Russian before the trip. Ukraine on my mind…

-My wife had a similar experience: she speaks quite decent French now and she basically spoke French to everyone she met in Mexico. She ordered quesadillas and the lady asked her: « ¿de maiz o de harina? » And she answered in French without a second’s hesitation: « de maïs. » I told her: that’s fantastic, you can understand Spanish. She looked at me and said: oh I thought she was speaking French… ! Long live Romance languages.

-One evening we were walking around looking for a place to eat and met a guy dressed as a chef. We had a small conversation in Spanish and he invited us to his restaurant. He didn’t roll his r’s, so I thought that’s very peculiar. He sounded exactly like the Spanish-language RFI radio journalist. Then it hit me: it’s a French restaurant, so of course he’s French. Indeed he was, and we both switched to French with great relief.

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE

-By then I was already feeling more confident. I could basically order in restaurants and buy bus tickets without mumbling. I could reply almost immediately when asked predictable questions. I still confused sesenta and setenta a couple of times, but people took it with a smile.

-There was voting going on at the bus station about the “revocation del mandato”. I didn’t see anyone voting and the turnout ended up being around 20%, so no surprise there. We saw political slogans painted on many walls throughout the country, mostly in the suburbs of the towns we visited. My favourite was the very romantic “AMOR CON AMOR SE PAGA.” Other good ones included “¡PRESIDENTE, NO ESTÁS SÓLO!” and the simple but poetic “OTRA VEZ POR ANDRÉS”. I saw only one opposition slogan. It was unimaginative, but very clear: “EL 10 DE ABRIL QUÉDATE EN CASA”.

-SMDA itself is a beauty. I understand why some many foreigners choose to stay here semi-permanently: the whole centro historico feels like a art museum. San Miguel has a large community of expats and we met a couple of Americans, French and Canadians around town. All of them spoke very impressive Spanish. To my hear, only the lack of alveolar trill gave them away as non native speakers.

-Tourists occupy the main squares by day and night, with mariachis for hire singing El Viajero and México en la Piel. It’s loud and fun. But in the small and quiet alleys, San Miguel is truly magic. It is not hard to imagine Allende and the brave Mexican criollos plotting to overthrow Spanish rule.

CDMX

-We arrived in CDMX a couple of days later and my Spanish faced its biggest challenge yet: our fully-paid booking was canceled by the hotel. I argued a bit with the front desk guy, who quickly went from very clear Spanish to mumbling, at which point I gave up and contacted the booking agency, which was equally unhelpful. Finally we solved the problem ourselves by booking another hotel near the Zocalo. I take it as a small victory that I managed to stick to Spanish in the circumstances.

-There were two young Russian guys in the lobby. While trying to solve to booking problem, I overheard them nervously talking about their credit cards not working and other money problems. Hum. I wondered whether they were trying to make a move north or if they just were caught by the sanctions while travelling abroad at the worst possible time. I didn’t want to engage them as I honestly don’t know what we could have talked about except the war and I was in no mood for that.

-Most people in CDMX welcomed my attempts at Spanish and to my great delight very few switched to English. At this point, I was speaking more spontaneously. The hardest part was never to approach someone with a question or a request, but to make sense of the reply, usually a sudden torrent of fast syllables. But mostly I was able to get the essence of what was said and I didn’t have to ask them to repeat.

-I think I confused traer et llevar more times than I dare to admit it, but every time people understood what I meant.

-We were literally 3 minutes away from the Zocalo, so we went every morning and evening. We heard some indigenous languages, but not sure which one. Indigenous people offer a ceremony of « limpia de aura » near the main square at the very reasonable price of 30 pesos. Watching people wai in line to have their soul cleansed for the price of a quesadilla was really fascinating.

-One evening while taking a rest at the hotel, we watched a speech from AMLO “en tiempo real” on TV from the Palacio National about his “cuarta transformación”. Among all Mexicans I heard on the trip, I think AMLO is the easiest to understand. His tempo is (painfully) slow and he enunciates deliberately and clearly. And the way he lengthens final “s” for emphasis at the end of every sentence is hilarious. “Neoliberalessss… pobressss…. Chiapassss…” I could do a word for word transcription of his speech - which feels really satisfying as a Spanish learner. I could never do that for a normal conversation on the street or in a taqueria, which feels frustrating.

-I was not prepared for the way Mexicans “eat” non-accentuated syllables. This will take time to get used to. We passed a father who was tying up the shoelaces of his daughter in a parc and when she tried to move away, he said: “Pera, a’otr!”, which I think meant: “Espera, hay otro!”

-I talked with a nice family on the Zocalo while watching young people playing the Aztec ball game. They were travelling in the capital during Semana Santa with their kids and they brought with them a newborn puppy. They told me that they couldn’t let the puppy walk on the ground until she was at least 30 days old and got her shots. So they carried her around wrapped in a blanket, all while visiting museums and plazas. I was amazed, both by their complete dedication to that cute puppy and by the fact that I could understand what they were saying. By the way, that Aztec ball game looks like the most exhausting sport ever invented.

-From the second day in Mexico I experienced what I think where symptoms of a mix of altitude sickness and air pollution. Gasping for air at night, headache, and bloody nose. Things were quickly solved by a triple espresso and ibuprofen.

-Next few days were spent touring the capital. We saw the Guadalupe Basilica, Teotihuacan, Coyoacan, Chatapultec, etc. Everywhere I was able to stick to my mission of speaking nothing but Spanish. In the evening I tried to watch a bit of TV and understood quite a lot, especially the news. I don’t know if this was a specially bad timing, but the entire news program was filled with stories of feminicides and disappeared young women. Very grim. In fact, just by my hotel, a group of indigenous women from Oaxaca were blocking the street with tents in protest against forced expulsion and gender violence.

-On our last day we visited Mercado de la merced, which is probably bigger than my hometown in Canada. We were looking for a very specific stand that sells pancita, and I’m still surprised we were able to find it in that maze of shops and sellers. If something exists on this planet, you can surely find it here.



-I had a couple conversations with the sellers there. I realized that it doesn’t really matter who I’m speaking with or what I’m speaking about. My degree of fluency depends much more on who’s leading the conversation. If I am the one at the wheel, things usually go very smoothly. I can accelerate, slow down or go any direction I want. But if I am in the “passenger seat” and someone comes to me with an unexpected question or request, I seem to lose much of my ability to speak coherently, I stumble and understand much less.

PUEBLA

-We arrived in Puebla right on Easter and the whole center was closed for celebrations. We stayed right by the Puebla Cathedral, one of the nicest churches I saw on this trip.

-People were lining up along the streets all around the Cathedral waiting for a procesión. There were people everywhere. I spotted a good viewpoint to watch the procesión near the Cathedral’s main door, and so we slipped through the crowd until we got in front of a bunch of guys in black suits. I gave them my best smile and said “¿Con permiso?” I think they hesitated one or two seconds, but they let us through. We watched the whole thing, including penitents in black capirotes, drummers, children choirs, nuns. Groups of 40-50 men dressed in different uniforms carried 6 statues in front of the church. There was music, fanfare and firecrackers. Every now and then the crowd was screaming “¡Viva el Rey Cristo!”. It was amazing and I never seen anything quite like that. I was so fascinated by the procesión, I didn’t realized we were completely surrounded by police officers. Just next to us was a big guy in a suit and a lady in a formal dress. We looked pretty underdressed compared to them. When the event was almost over, the couple next to us started moving toward the exit. The police officers immediately followed, opening a path for them in the crowd all the way to a black car parked nearby. I asked a nearby police: “Quiénes son esas personas?” He looked at me with a look of utter confusion and said: “El señor gobernador y su esposa”. I must have looked pretty surprised, because he then asked me: “Y quiénes son ustedes?” I mumbled something and we got out of there. I am still not sure how we ended up in the VIP section next the Puebla State governor, but I believe my very convincing use of ¿Con permiso? played a big role.

-That night we tried mole and I absolutely loved it, but my wife couldn’t finish her portion. We also found out about this great song from a local street singer about mole (not the poblano, but the oaxaqueño variant).



OAXACA

-A 5-hour bus ride brought us to Oaxaca and to a completely different scenery. Temperature was scorching hot, dogs were sunbathing in the middle of the streets, and the whole centre looked basically abandoned during daytime. Oaxaca really comes alive at night, when the heat recedes and parks fill up with families. Jazz orchestras take over the plazas and tlayuda shops start feeding the hungry masses. There were many more foreign tourists here, as well as a strange mix of fancy French cafés and beggars. The central market also included tents of displaced people, complete with posters with the names and faces of disappeared people.

-My Spanish became much better at this point. I made myself understood everywhere I went. It might be just an impression, but I think I understood people here better than in the central part of the country, maybe because they speak slower. But most likely I was simply getting used to the local speed.

-I had a very interesting conversation in French with a US professor of Francophone literature, who I net at my hotel. He also spoke excellent Spanish but I think we were both happy to use French at this point. We talked a bit about Theroux’s book On the Plain of Snakes and he told me Theroux is part French-Canadian, which I didn’t know.

-We saw interesting street art all around Oaxaca. There’s a huge Canadian flag right on the main walking street, with a huge spider on top: “FUERA MINERAS DE OAXACA”. Like in all other cities where I have been, there seems to be a concerted campaign of street art/graffitis by feminist groups to raise awareness about sexual violence and disappearances. “NO UNA MÁS” is the most ubiquitous slogan. “VIVAS LAS QUEREMOS” is also common. But by far my favourite was: “SEXO DEBIL TUS HUEVOS”.

-My wife wanted an haircut, so we figure: why not try a local salon? We went to the central market and I asked the way to a “peluquería por mujeres”. Some lady explained the way and we quickly found it. We negotiated a decent price and the hairdresser got to work. Few minutes later that same lady came by the peluquería and said something like: “I told them about your shop, I brought you clients, so let me have my share.” She didn’t say it with those words, it was all very convoluted and implied. And the hairdresser said: oh sure, thank you, and gave her something like 10 pesos. I found that both fascinating and absolutely hilarious. My wife was shocked. A culture has so many unwritten rules! What if we had asked 3 different women - would they have gotten each their share?

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS

-We took a 12-hour night bus to Cristobal de las Casas and woke up to a completely different atmosphere: green hills, cold mountain air, a lot of young tourists with a strong hippie vibe. For some reasons, the whole city strongly reminded me of Tibetan areas and Kathmandu. There’s something in the smells, the colours, the altitude, even the locals. Indigenous people are everywhere in the little centro historico, with their colourful traditional clothing. Markets are an explosion of flavours and smells. Many local languages can be heard all over the place, which I assumed were the two local Mayan variants.

-We visited the local Guadalupe church. We found it empty, but soon a local family joined us inside. They each took turn and stood in front of the Guadalupe statue and prayed in their language. They prayed aloud, in a very clear and loud voice, as if addressing a group of people. It definitely sounded similar to Kiche, the only other Mayan language I heard. It was striking because they didn’t seem to care that we were right there. For someone like me who grew up Catholic and was taught that prayers are secret, it felt like I was intruding on their personal life, even though I couldn’t understand a single word they were saying. The place was empty, and their voices echoed throughout the church. It was beautiful. Then, one by one, they kissed the robe of the Guadalupe statue, kneeled for a few seconds, and got out. They didn’t even looked at us. I wonder what they thought of us two, standing there like intruders in a sacred place and not even praying. Maybe not knowing is best.

-That night we went for dinner in one the town’s many Korean restaurants. It was not exactly 고향의맛, but it was comforting nevertheless. The rice was excellent and when I asked « ¿Es el arroz importado o viene de aquí? » the waitress answered « Es importado de la Ciudad de México ».

-We then took a tour to Palenque and Agua Azul. Heat was unbearable in the jungle of Palenque, but it was well worth it. Agua Azul is smaller than I thought, but beautiful. Misol Ha is forgettable. The guide was speaking only Spanish and I managed to understand about 95% of what he said. The only time he lost me was when he started describing the local flora and fauna.

-On our tour were one Mexican-American couple. They spoke English to each other and then perfect Spanish with the guide. There was also another US Latino from the West Coast who spoke extremely fluent Spanish, but with a very strong English accent and zero alveolar trill. Quite a mix of interesting people.

-At one point the driver and one Mexican tourist were debating the most accurate pronunciation of Oaxaca. Should it be “j” like in Texas and México, or “ks”? I was sitting in the back of the minibus, so unfortunately I couldn’t catch most of what was said. I think it was more of a joke than a serious proposition, because at the end they both agreed to pronounce it “Oaksaka” and they laughed. I never heard anyone else say it that way. On a related note, I saw an historical plaque in San Miguel were México was written Méjico.

-Just outside Ocosingo we passed through a Zapatista caracol. We saw EZLN signs and flags. Our chauffeur gave us a long monologue on what it meant to live in a state where some villages are outside the rule of law and government control. I will not reproduce his comments here, but let’s say there’s not much love in his heart for the Zapatistas. Our group was half Mexicans and many seemed to agree with his position. It was quite a difference from the impression I got by reading Theroux’s book on his trip in this region. We didn’t see any roadblocks, but the driver told us he used secondary roads to get around them. The only incident was some local children throwing rocks at our van. The real danger on this trip were the hundreds of “topes” to slow down the traffic along the Maya road. My lower back still hurts.

-After a full day tour of listening to Spanish, I became more confident in my skills. We went to eat seafood and I was able to chat with the staff about seafood logistics in a mountainous region. I talked with the Mayan souvenirs sellers about why they were selling Russian matryoshkas in Chiapas. Much of my initial stress at making mistakes was now gone. I spoke at will and I kept making mistakes and correcting them. I became more relaxed, confident and I was enjoying the process.

-In the evening we went to a tapas bar to try some Mexican wine. Behind us were two guys from CDMX who had started early and were already drunk. They started hurling insults at local patrol officers and when a Spanish couple walked by, they also got a nice dose about the “pinches conquistadores que mataron a nuestros abuelos”. Hmmm. Not really my style, but tourist bars tend to attract this kind of riffraffs. Anyway, I updated my glossary of grosserias and the Mexican wine was surprisingly good.

-Our AirBnB host had two huge green parrots. One could speak some Spanish and (it pains me to say) his pronunciation was better than mine.

CANCUN

Last stop: Quintana Roo. I will not lie: after many noisy nights in dirt-cheap AirBnBs, I was looking forward to taking a rest on the beach. And Cancun is exactly like I imagined it: obnoxious, loud, expensive and a complete ripoff. No surprise there. The whole place feels weird. People fly to Cancun long hours, pay a big chunk of money, and I feel they have this pressure to have a good time no matter what. For many, that means ingesting as much alcohol as possible in the shortest timeframe. The overall level of Spanish proficiency among tourists here appears to be much lower than in other regions of Mexico. It’s almost caricatural, in fact. A lot of “No problemo, todo bueno.”

-There was another problem with our hotel booking, but I managed to solve it in Spanish, although the staff knew English. They sticked with Spanish with much patience, which I greatly appreciated.

-Language-wise, I kept talking in Spanish to everyone I met in Cancun. Many switched to English, but I stood my ground valiantly and ignored their anglo-saxon assaults. I can say I won nearly all the time and we ended most conversations in Spanish. But not surprisingly, it is the least encouraging place to practice Spanish, as English is ubiquitous and many people switched when they felt I was hesitant.

-We went to stay one night in a resort to get the full “Cancun” experience. We were exploring the facilities on the beach when we saw a father and his young daughter getting caught up in the waves and drowning. There were red flags all over the beach, “prohibido nadar”, but they went in anyway... I saw them swimming away, then a big wave hit them, another one, and one second later the little girl went under. The father tried to get her out, then he lost control and started drowning as well. Luckily he managed to raise his arm and scream HELP!, which we heard despite the distance. Before I could even react, a Mexican couple next to me got up and screamed something in Spanish, and two lifesavers and two medics came running. It took about 2 minutes for them to reach the father and daughter and another 3-4 minutes to get them out of the water. They sat on the beach for a few minutes, cried and went inside. For a moment I really thought it was over for them. I had a nice chat afterwards with one of the lifesavers. I told him: Hoy tu salvaste dos vidas. He answered, in the most humble tone: pues si senor, es mi trabajo. He then explained to us in Spanish the meaning of the red flags on the beach. He was not bitter at all, but he sounded a bit disappointed that people would risk their life just for a swim in the Caribbean. We also talked with the two (un)lucky ones in English. They looked like they had been through hell and back.

-Most of the guests at the resort were Brazilians. Interestingly, Brazilians were speaking Portuguese to the staff, without any effort whatsoever to adapt, and staff was speaking Spanish to them in the same way, and they seemed to understand each other pretty well. It just shows that when there’s a will, there’s always a way. For my part, I was sitting next to a Brazilian family during dinner and I understood next to nothing. Just the odd word here and there.

REFLEXIONS

-I estimate I had a minimum of 300 small interactions in Spanish over 19 days. Only 4-5 times were my attempts at Spanish met with scoffing and dismissive reactions. Every time this happened, it was in tourist-heavy areas such as San Cristobal, San Miguel and Cancun. So that’s more than 98% of normal/positive reactions to my poor grammar and questionable pronunciation. Very few people switched to English, probably less than 5%, and it happened almost only in Cancun. Most people were encouraging and although not all were making an effort to slow down their speech, they all welcomed my attempts.

-Some of the expressions I found most useful were not covered in any of the materials I used to prepare for this trip (Assimil, FSI and Pimsleur):

    -By far the most useful was ¿Mande? to ask people to repeat.
    -I heard local people say ¿Cuanto sale? more often than the textbook classic ¿Cuanto cuesta?
    -In the first days I was using the Peninsular ¡Vale! to express approval, but I quickly changed to the Mexican equivalent of ¡Sale!
    -I think “Con permiso” is taught in most textbooks, but I only realized how useful and versatile it is on the ground. It is like the Russian пожалуйста, a real “passe partout”. It quickly became one of my favourite. Sometimes it felt like I could do nearly anything in Mexico as long as I added an emphatic “¿Con permiso?” directed at the nearest person.
    -(In one restaurant near the Guadalupe church in CDMX, a chair was missing at our table. I spotted a empty chair at the next table where three women were sitting. I pointed at it and asked ¿Con permiso? The women immediately answered “Por supuesto, por supuesto”. I grabbed the chair and moved it to our side. Minutes later, a man joined the women, and he couldn’t find his chair. I felt guilty and tried to give him back but they wouldn’t have it. He went and asked the waiter for a new chair. In Canada, they would just have refused plainly to give me the chair. Heck, I know countries where they would have refused even if no one was expected! Perhaps I am over-interpreting the situation, but for me this is a testimony to how incredibly nice Mexican people are and how powerful “Con permiso” can be.)

-As a tourist, most of my interactions involved me asking someone about something. Getting someone’s attention in a polite but also time-effective way was really important and I wished I had worked on that before travelling. In the first few days I said “Disculpe señor/señora, pero tengo algo que quisiera preguntarle a usted”. That was incredibly long and not practical at all, but it worked. Then I heard a Mexican tourist asking information: he simply said “Una pregunta.” and then asked whatever he wanted to know. Short, sweet and polite. I started using it and it sounds so much better.

-Reflexive verbs were my best friends when asking general questions. A simple ¿Se puede + verb + obj.? solved many, many problems for me.

-My reading and listening skills are better than I thought. Not one time was I completely lost when reading something or listening to an announcement or in a long conversation. I was always able to grasp the core meaning, although not all details and nuances. Short replies did confuse me a lot in the first few days, but only momentarily. I was able to regain control of most conversations and get me out of trouble and back on track.

-It would be a lie to say that I spoke elegantly. Most of the time, I probably sounded like an undereducated individual with a mouth malformation. It was embarrassing because I met many Americans/Canadians who did spoke Spanish with elegance and eloquence, so it is not a goal out of reach. That being said, I did manage to solve all problems in Spanish and the mistakes I made didn’t have any major impact on the trip - such as buying the wrong bus ticket or misunderstanding departure or check out time.

-I forgot how easy it is to learn vocabulary when inside the target-language country. Every word or expression is forever associated with a particular experience, person or feeling. It becomes deeply ingrained in the memory. Anki can never compete with that. I will never forget “topes” after the trip along Ruta Maya, nor will I forget “hulero” after hearing it screamed at a police officer, nor will I forget “pista” after a taxi driver convinced me to take the country road, turning a 45 min trip into a 1 h 30 min trip. Same thing with maracuya, marimba, chamoy, guajillo, guacamaya, and so many others. I picked words like you pick fruits or flowers along the way.

CONCLUSION

My goal to travel in Mexico using nothing but Spanish was basically accomplished, but my weak point remains speaking: I probably sound like a rude 10-year-old most of the time.

Now that this milestone is behind me, what? I know I can travel using nothing but Spanish, but I still have so much to improve. Most efficient way would to hire a tutor and just talk, talk, talk for a few hours each week, but that requires a level of commitment that I don’t really have. A more realistic option would be to create “islands” based on topics that I find useful and work with online apps to get feedback from native speakers. More flexibility, less commitment. Watching more sitcoms with dialogues instead of podcasts wouldn’t hurt. No one talks like podcasters.

We are already thinking about our next trip in this region, so I might as well get to work now!

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Apr 27, 2022 5:53 pm

Congratulations on your fine trip to Mexico. And thanks for reminding me of the good vacations I had a couple of times in Guanajuato. Somewhere I read, by the way, that Guanajuato is the number one vacation destiny for Mexicans themselves. Though that was a generation ago.
For starting conversations with Mexicans--who are, as you say, very polite people--a simple start with buenos días or buenas tardes followed by ¿cómo está usted? is usually sufficient.
I have found this also to be true:
-I forgot how easy it is to learn vocabulary when inside the target-language country. Every word or expression is forever associated with a particular experience, person or feeling. It becomes deeply ingrained in the memory. Anki can never compete with that. I will never forget “topes” after the trip along Ruta Maya, nor will I forget “hulero” after hearing it screamed at a police officer, nor will I forget “pista” after a taxi driver convinced me to take the country road, turning a 45 min trip into a 1 h 30 min trip. Same thing with maracuya, marimba, chamoy, guajillo, guacamaya, and so many others. I picked words like you pick fruits or flowers along the way.
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby iguanamon » Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:56 pm

Years ago, I left my small, rural southern town and drove all the way to Laredo, Texas- leaving my vehicle there. I crossed the border into Nuevo Laredo. I took the train to CDM and buses the rest of the way, visiting many of the same places you did.

I, too, remember being turned-off by Cancún. It was a very "non-Mexican" city even 20 years ago. I was glad to leave it as soon as I could for Chiapas and the Belizean border! I took the bus all the way back to Nuevo Laredo, stopping along the way. Thanks for bringing back the memories. :D
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:48 pm

I know only two ways of studying foreign languages: (1) walking around my neighborhood while parroting sentences from Pimsleur, Glossika, Assimil, etc., scaring people as I walk past them, and (2) staring at my computer monitor for hours, waiting for something to happen. There is actually very little human interaction involved, unless I am travelling. This was not a problem until I started a new job last year, for which I am also expected to stare at a screen for 8 hours a day.

As a result, I started to develop acute eye strain in both eyes. I went to see the eye doctor and she told me I needed to reduce my screen time drastically. She then asked me: What are some of your hobbies, outside of work? I said: I enjoy learning languages. Oh great, she said, that’s not something you can do on the computer, because everyone knows you won’t learn a foreign language unless you go out and talk to real people. I very much felt that she was calling me out on my learning method.

So I started new hobbies to get me away from looking at numerous PDF in foreign tongues all day long. I did a bit of summer gardening on my balcony (growing 깻잎, as it is prohibitively expensive in Canada) and learning to play the tin whistle. I started reading much more also, as paper books are easier on the eyes.

ENGLISH

-I read the English version of Shake Hands with the Devil about the Rwanda genocide. There is no mention of the book being a translated version, so I guess Dallaire wrote both the French and English copies. It is a truly fascinating story, as Dallaire was not only the local UN mission commander, he was also acting as the de-facto translator between the then Kigali government (mostly French speaking) and Uganda-based rebels (mostly English speaking) during negotiations shortly before and during the genocide. The book also clearly explains why French lost its place and was swiftly replaced with English after regime change – something I witnessed first-hand when I visited there a few years ago.

-Thanks to Coldrainwater's German Log, I discovered the excellent econtalk podcast. I listened to tens of episodes by now, all of which I found insightful and thought-provoking. The language is surprisingly free of jargon and quite approachable even for non-natives like me. This forum is a treasure trove of language learning tips and resources, but I also find it very valuable as a place to find podcast, series and movies recommendations.

RUSSIAN/UKRAINIAN

-Since the events of the last few days, I have been monitoring intensively the Russian Twittersphere. It’s unhealthy, both for my brain and for my eyes, but damn it’s entertaining. An unintended consequence of this has been that my exposure to Ukrainian has also increased, with a huge variation in how much I understand. Part of this is that most of the time I don’t know if I hearing surzhyk or actual Ukrainian.

-Journalist @JuliaDavisNews has an entire Twitter account dedicated to translating Russian talk shows into English. Her subtitles are quite accurate and can be useful for Russian learners out there.

SPANISH

-I have been working on my Spanish language Islands. I made a list of about 500 sentences, which I harvested from guidebooks and on the Internet. Using them, I wrote four short dialogues focused on four topics most relevant to my needs: hotel, restaurant, taxi and bus. My only criterion when choosing whether to include a sentence or not was this one: would this sentence have been useful during my Mexican trip last April? This simple yes or no question was useful in excluding much of the fluff and discriminating between stuff I really need from the stuff I think I perhaps could need.

-My favorite Cuban podcast El Enjambre recently launched its new season and they have a new portion of the show dedicated to languages called “La lengua larga”. From what I understood, they mostly talk about Cuban Spanish and how it differs from Peninsular and other variants. Quite entertaining, as always.

- I continue to listen to a number of Spanish podcasts including Las Raras, Fugas and Retrato narrado on Spotify. The last one is a Spanish podcast on Bolsonaro’s rise to the presidency and there is also a Portuguese version. Another Cuban podcast called Cafecito informativo announced that they could not continue, because of the terrible situation with these big apagones all over Cuba.

-I followed the Colombian elections very closely and what a show! It was like a crash course in Latin-American politics, full of family feuds, undercover visits to narco jails, suitcases full of cash and secret recordings. I discovered a number of good Colombian podcasts such as A Fondo Con María Jimena Duzán, which has very good political content and great audio quality. Caracol Radio is of lower audio quality and has a more partisan/superficial approach. El Primer Café is a good news round-up, but it would be so much better if the two hosts would actually drink caffeine before recording. Radio Ambulante made list of 11 episodes about Colombia and I am slowly going through them.

GERMAN

-I finished watching Learning German: A Journey through Language and Culture from The Great Courses. It is course of 30 episodes of around 30 minutes each. Progress is steady and content is pretty thorough, including subjunctive and genitive. Teacher James Pfrehm has a nice humoristic tone. The course probably goes a bit too fast for complete beginners, but I think it can make a terrific resource if coupled with a grammar textbook or two.

-I watched two episodes of Babylon Berlin (with German subtitles) and I enjoyed it very much. In fact it is so good that it really motivated me to further my German studies. The overall historical background is fascinating and the story is as dark as it can get. For now, I focus mostly on the language and I will probably re-watch it when my level is higher. Basically, I pause every sentence and check the subtitles until I am sure I understand every word and why such and such cases are being used. I am again amazed at how much similarity there is between French and German in ways of wording and expressing things. I think the show is mostly in Hochdeutsch, but there’s certainly some dialect. I hear Ik instead of Ich, which I guess is the way the Berliner characters speak. The main character is from Koln, but I don’t hear any specific accent from him, not that I would know what a Kölner sounds like. Subtitles keep cutting the endings, hab not habe, geh not gehe, kenn not kenne, which is a bit confusing. It feels reassuring to see that characters are not using a perfect Germanic word order. Complements of time and place are very often added afterwards, as a separate sentence, and not necessarily before the verb. It also feels like every other sentence has the verb kriegen in it, which doesn’t appear in any of my textbooks. (I think Assimil might have included it a few times?)

-I just finished German Pimsleur III, but then I saw that I already wrote here back in April that I had completed that very level. So I guess I did it twice? No wonder so much of the content seemed familiar.

-I watched a pretty good German movie called Ich bin dein mensch. The main character is a linguist working on translating Akkadian tablets. The movie has a joke about how using the German genitive case (?) in every day conversation is weird, but I didn’t really get it at the time and the English subtitles didn’t translate the joke properly.

-I found and read an old version of Hugo’s Simplified German. It still uses the Gothic alphabet, which took some time to get used to. It tries to teach German grammar *in a simplified way*, and contains real gems of wisdom such as “consider all nouns masculine except those ending in e; learn neuter nouns as they occur” and “Word order is same as in English, except when specified otherwise.”

KOREAN

-I enjoyed Extraordinary Attorney Woo, like millions of people and I cannot recommend it enough. I understood almost nothing of the legal stuff, but at least some of the dialogues were simple enough to enjoy without looking at subtitles. There is an episode where they do a number of “dad jokes” in Korean. I understood only one of them, the one about oranges, and the others had to be explained to me.

오렌지를 먹어본지 얼마나 오렌지?


There is a blog post explaining each of the jokes and their translation. I think Netflix must have hired a new Korean translator because the translation was much better than in previous series.

- We made friends in the small local Korean community and I get to exchange a few words now and then. It’s mostly just 인사 and I wish I could have a normal conversation just once, and not just make them laugh with my silly choice of words.

-I told a Korean friend I was struggling with her language and she suggested (half-jokingly) that I borrow a few first-grade readers from her kids. I think she didn’t expect me to accept her proposal, but I immediately agreed. I didn’t tell her yet but first-grade readers are really hard – I find them harder than normal novels in fact, perhaps because they are incredibly boring. So instead I ordered 10 bilingual Korean-English books of classic English literature and will try to do some reading in the future. At least I’ll be able to check the words I don’t know directly on the other page while reading. And the story won’t be about a monkey going to school with a hippo.

VARIA

-I continue to monitor books being dropped in our network of street libraries. I found some nice surprises, including a French-Indonesian dictionary from the 70s and a quadrilingual book in Basque, French, English and Spanish. It is a exchange of letters between a local Quebec writer and a Basque writer, published in San Sebastián as part of the Saison Québec-Pays Basque. I also found a copy of Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano, Benny Lewis’ book Fluent in Three Months, and (a real gem!) a copy of Os Lusíadas with notes and explanations in modern Portuguese.

FRENCH

-I read Le Premier Exil by Santiago Amigorena and I was puzzled by the verb “Se recorder”. I thought it might be Spanish interference, as Amigorena is Uruguayan, but the verb can be found in French dictionaries, but is described as “vieux”.

-I read Philip Kerr’s book La Paix des Dupes in French. The book is great and I thought the translation was OK at first, but it became weirder and weirder as the story progressed. I used to work as a translator in the past and I know that as deadlines get closer and fatigue sets in, it is normal for translation quality to decrease as the book nears its ending. But then I realized that these peculiarities were not mistakes or typos, but that the translator – most likely a speaker of the European dialect of French – was actually serious. Things like “comme de juste” (?), “dans ce goût-là” (?), “cuiller” instead of cuillère (!!) and “soul” instead of saoul (!?!). Simply beyond comprehension. I managed to finish the book despite all this because the story was so engaging.

-My wife’s French continues to improve and has now reached a point of advanced fluency, after 12 months of daily studying. She completed the advanced French certificate at the local college. Most people in her group were participants in the Explore Program, in which Canadian students can receive a grant to study one of the two official languages in another province, so mostly people from Ontario and BC.

-Her teachers were quite normative in their teaching approach, telling them not to pronounce things with [ts] and [dz]. At the same time, they themselves were using affricative in every other word. When confronted on it, their reaction went like this: “Look, kiddo, it’s too late for me, but save yourselves”.

-She has learned to recognize “phénomènes linguistiques québécois” quite well. She keeps making fun of me because of my affrication, but like her teachers, I refuse to bend the knee. And we both laugh when we hear people putting diphtongues in words like peut-être or lapin or using extreme postérisation. The only think left for her to learn at this point is slang, which is like 75% of spoken French.

-We are leaving on a trip to Belgium in a couple of days and I hope this will be a French-only trip, so as to give her a bit of an immersive experience. My plan is to speak with such thick Québécois accent that people will not understand me and she will have to do all the talking. Let’s see how it goes!
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Tue Oct 11, 2022 10:42 pm

Just a few notes on my recent travel in Europe with regards to languages.

BENELUX

    - Dutch sounds hard. We got lost in the Amsterdam train system and I asked my way to a young lady. I couldn’t understand the station names even when she repeated slowly. She pointed the station on the map and repeated again, and only then was I able to associate the phonemes that came out of her mouth and the written word.

    - Written Dutch is much more straightforward and I could make out most of what I read, thanks to my extremely basic German. Some words were quite interesting, like eetzaal and overstappen.

    - I think I heard more English in Amsterdam than in Toronto. Probably due to the fact that half of Britain seems to cross over on the weekend?

    - After Amsterdam, we visited Delft and then moved to Belgium. We saw and overheard a lot of Russian all over Benelux. I remember one couple in particular: they were sitting next to us on the train from Delft to Bruges. The guy picked up a phone call. He spoke for about 20 minutes in loud Russian and got into a heated argument with the person on the line. He started screaming “А що ТЫ не пошел на фронт?” (Why don’t YOU go to the frontlines?). He became agitated and the girl just looked depressed. Interestingly, they were both covered from head to toe in famous European brands. Strange times we live in.

    - Also in Belgium we had a nice chat with a Flemish local while waiting for the train. We were talking in English, mixing in some French. I raised the topic of the complicated language situation and she told us : Nous (Flemish) préférons parler Anglais en Wallonie, et c’est la même chose pour eux, ils (les Wallons) ne veulent pas parler néerlandais. Her French was nearly native, with only the slightest hint of an accent, but despite this she admitted that she always prefers to speak French when in Brussels.

    - I exchanged a few words with our guesthouse host in French in Bruges, and he would reply in perfect French every time, but would always revert to English. One German couple entered and tried their French, but the host stopped them and said in German: “Ich bin Holländer und Ich spreche gern Deutsch oder English, aber nicht französisch.” That being said, everywhere people were very nice and keen to accommodate French speakers.

    - We then moved to Brussels. At that point I was a bit disappointed because we didn’t hear much Belgian French accent. People sounded very “neutral European French”, and if not for the occasional septante, huitante and nonante, I would not know if they are French or Belgian. But in the hotel we watched Belgian TV for a bit and I enjoyed it tremendously. There was a reality TV show about cops in Oostende, and every single person on that show had the thickest Belgian accent, like Jacques Brel on steroids. Their final l and their r are especially unique and charming.

    - We crossed into Luxembourg, which lived up to its reputation as a multilingual stronghold. People were switching very naturally between German, French and English without any problem. I write German here, but it could have been Luxembourgish, impossible for me to tell the difference. People seemed to be mixing languages all the time and everywhere. We went to a museum and listened to old radio recordings in French, and they had a very distinctive accent, with a somewhat Germanized pronunciation.

    - At this point, there is surely something very clever to say about why Belgium (and Canada for that matter) have failed in creating a multilingual citizenry, while the experience seems to be quite successful in Luxembourg.

FRANCE

    - From Luxembourg we went into France. Despite its looks, Strasbourg sounded very French indeed, except for the high number of German tourists all over the place. What struck me is how little effort there is in translating announcements and public displays in German despite their presence all over town.

    - In the evening we ran into Catholic processions around for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Old and young people were gathering in front of the Strasbourg cathedral, holding candles and singing hymns in French and Latin (!). I don’t know anyone in Quebec who can sing hymns in Latin, so that was quite impressive.

    - It was also the Fête des Vendanges in France. Cider and winemakers were selling their products in the town center. A brass band was playing traditional Alsatian music and some of the musicians had a badge saying “wir reden elsässisch”. So although I didn’t hear any of it, I guess some people do speak Alsatian, but it must not be so common if they have to wear a badge to announce it?

    - Our final destination was la Ville Lumière. My plan was to speak with the thickest Québécois accent, just for fun and to see people’s reaction. I was disappointed: there was mostly no reaction, only polite smiles. Parisian garçons de café are so impervious, they don’t really notice and everyone managed to understand me just fine. Indeed, what’s a little Québécois when you deal with Mandarin-only customers all day long? So I pushed the envelope. In every shop I gradually added more québécismes and exaggerated my accent to confuse my poor interlocutors. In a Pierre Hermé shop, I said: « Ché chequer ça pi m’a te prendre trois-quat’ tsi macarons pour take-out, pi tsu peux-tsu me mettre toute ça dans un doggiebag? Tsu serais bin-bin fine. » She answered without skipping a beat: oui, monsieur, tout de suite, although she did laugh a bit. So my mission to confuse our French cousins ended in failure.

    - There was only one time where I stepped over the line and Parisians insisted on correcting me. In Stohrer bakery, I asked for a chocolatine instead of a pain au chocolat, and half of the staff laughed out loud, the other half was revolted. The shop manager immediately stopped what he was doing, he walked over and explained with much amusement that they didn’t have any chocolatine, they only had pain au chocolat, that he would gladly give me a pain au chocolat, but not a chocolatine. I insisted on having a chocolatine, and he insisted that they sold only pains au chocolat. We went back and forth like that a few times, a very long queue of confused Spanish and American tourists were watching us, and finally we agreed that they are the same thing. We all laughed, I paid for the chocolatine and it was delicious.

    - Although French is basically the same on both sides of the Atlantic, linguistic usage differs. It’s difficult to describe exactly how so, but some of the French usage sounds absolutely and irremediably cute to my Canadian ears. It’s as if French people allow themselves to express things with much more clarity and candor, while in Quebec the same things are mostly implied, but rarely put in words explicitly. Perhaps for fear of sounding too pompous or pretentious? The fact is there is a lot of poetic beauty in some of the very mundane things Parisian people say to each other. Many times I couldn’t help but smile and I thought: yes, some people really do speak like that, it’s not just in the novels. In a restaurant I heard a fully grown man say « Je vais déjeuner avec maman demain », instead « avec ma mère ». In a restaurant I heard one woman complimenting her waiter: « Vous avez une excellente élocution. » On the Métro, one conductor was ending her shift and her last announcement went like this: « Je vous souhaite un excellent week-end et bon courage aux collèges ! » Bon courage – what a nice way to say goodbye! So much better than our very boring « OK, j’y vais, bye-bye là ». And of course, everywhere you can hear people using « si, si ! » as a totally normal reply. Actual people, not actors in a play.

    - My wife did get her taste of language immersion: we spoke French everywhere and with everyone. Despite her being obviously non native, the vast majority of people stuck to French and tried to help her. A few people (mostly employees in the service sector from Mauritius) tried to switch to English, but she held her ground!

That’s all I had to share about Europe. I’ll be leaving on a trip to Panama and Colombia in November. That means that for the next five weeks or so, my German and Korean projects will be on hold and my energy will be on getting my Spanish back to the level it was at the end of my Mexico trip, i.e. just decent to avoid getting myself in trouble.
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Tue Oct 11, 2022 11:29 pm

Interesting survey of French in action.
One day why not take a vacation in Louisiana in the States and see what you can make of Cajun or Creole French. Although I kinda sorta live nearby, I've never heard Cajuns speak their version of French in the wild.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Sun Oct 30, 2022 12:42 am

Trist nouvel : Atis ayisyen Michael Benjamin (Mika Ben) mouri sou scene nan peyi Lafrans. Mika, se ou ki pati kite nou!

Haiti has lost a great artist, as if everything else happening there wasn't enough. Michael Benjamin died a few days ago, just as he was leaving the stage after performing his hit song Ou Pati Kite'm in Paris. His songs and poetry really helped me when I was exploring Haitian Creole a few years ago. He will be missed. Just listening to his songs now make me want to go back to learning beautiful kreyòl !

Repoze anpe !

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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:52 am

Debajo ustedes pueden leer algunas notas y reflexiones sobre mi visita a Panama y Colombia. Fue mi primer viaje a America del Sur y ojalá no sera el último. Es un poquito largo y ampuloso, así que estén prevenidos.

Elegí escribir en español por razones que son evidentes. He hablado solamente en español desde que subimos al avión en Montréal hasta que volvimos en Toronto. Fue más fácil “resucitar” mi español que temía antes de viajar, y estoy bastante satisfecho de que pude hacerme entender. ¡Ojalá los Colombianos que tuvieron la mala suerte de escuchar mi español piensen lo mismo!

He recogido muchas canciones contagiosas viajando por esos dos países - en la radio, en las calles y los cafés. Elegí unas cuantas que he incluido aquí.

PANAMA

    -Todo empezó en al avión de la Copa Airlines rumbo a Panama. Vi una película documental que se llama “La Opción Cero”. La recomiendo muchísimo. Se trata de la reciente ola de refugiados cubanos que intentan salir de su isla para llegar a un lugar mejor. Muchos no tienen otra opción que pasar por la selva del Darien a pie. Es un documental cautivante, que usa videos grabados por los celulares de los propios migrantes. Todo lo que deben superar para lograr su meta es realmente espantoso y horrible, pero el coraje y la resiliencia que demuestran son muy conmovedores. La película entera me dejó boca abierta, pero hay una escena en particular que me chocó personalmente: un migrante habla que durante su “viaje” peligroso por America central encontró una turista norteamericana que ya había visitado Cuba. Ella se puso a hablar de su viaje a La Habana, del Malecón, del monumento a Lenon, etcétera. Los migrantes no saben que decir y se quedan callados, pero su silencio es muy cargado. No me cabe duda que tal turista pudiera haber sido yo. Creo que de algún punto de vista, todos los tipos de turismo son poco éticos y dañan las comunidades mucho más que ayudan. Recomiendo muchísimo esta película a los que se interesan en los asuntos de Cuba, es emocionante y muy bien hecha.

    Image

    -La otra peli que vimos se llama “Clara Sola”. Es una historia bien emocionante sobre la despierta sexual de una mujer muy especial en un pequeño pueblo latinoamericano - con un giro sorprendente en el guion que me gustó mucho.

    -La ciudad de Panama se ve impresionante, con edificios muy altos y selva densa al rededor. El primer día llegamos tarde al hotel. Dimos un corto paseo en el malecón, que tiene una hermosa vista que me recordó un poco Dubai. Fuimos a un dinner show cultural en un restaurante que serve comida tradicional panameña: plátanos fritos con platos de mariscos frescos. Aunque el show fue una decepción que nos dió dolor de cabeza, la comida sabía muy deliciosa y fresca.

    -El segundo día fuimos al viejo casco, que es bonito pero muy pequeño. Que pena que hay demasiados carros y que los edificios no son muy bien mantenidos. Lo que me sorprendió fue que al lado del casco viejo hay un barrio popular que se llama Santa Ana, que es de mala fama. Es fascinante la división social que se ve por acá: de un lado venden capuchino y pan tostado con aguacates a 18$, y del otro lado, a como cincuenta metros, chicas venden su cuerpo.

    -Contrario a lo que pensaba, no perdí mi español, lo sigo hablando tan mal que antes, ni mejor ni peor. Desde los primeros minutos en sol panameño, hablé solamente en español. Pero no fue nada fácil entender la gente aquí y diría que me cuesta más que en México. Hablan con mucha rapidez, pero cuando la gente ve mi cara llena de confusión, rectifican las cosas y me hablan como si tuviera un problema de retraso. Al menos todos sin excepción me hablan en español y yo también, hablo con todos en el idioma local. Lo que no ayuda es que todo el mundo habla de fútbol, y a mí no me interesa mucho. Debo admitir que ni siquiera sabía que mi país se cualificó. Lo aprendí en un taxi en Panamá.

    -Estoy un poco obsesionado con el canal de Panamá después de haber leído el libro “Path between the seas” del historiador americano McCullough. Tal vez es un poco raro, porque es un libro sobre una obra de ingeniería, pero es un de mis libros favoritos. Fuimos a Miraflores y el canal es impresionante. Es una maravilla de ingeniería humana - un gran obra que impone el respeto, en particular cuando se sabe cuánto gente se murió para acabarlo. Vimos a dos enormes barcos pasar, un de Monaco y el otro de Corea. Vimos muy de cerca el funcionamiento de las esclusas y cómo las enormes puertas de hiel se abren para dejar pasar los barcos.

    -Tuve una conversación bien interesante con el taxista panameño que nos llevó allí: el solía trabajar con el ejército de los EEUU en el tiempo de la zona del canal y me dijo que personalmente por el, la nacionalización del canal fue una mala noticia: el se ganaba mucho en traer los militares por la ciudad y cobraba mucho, mucho más que el precio justo. Un official puertorriqueño del ejército americano lo hizo pasar por su sobrino (tienen el mismo apellido) y le conseguí un pase para entrar y salir cuando lo quería de la zona del canal. Los gringos se fueron, y con ellos se fue también su fuente de dólares regular y fácil.

    -Probamos otra vez la cocina local de pescados frescos en el mercado de mariscos: un regalo para el gusto! Nos comimos un montón de camarones, de pargos, de ceviche, todo muy fresco, rico y barato.

    -Otro taxista panameño me aprendió como nunca dejarme engañar por los taxistas en America del Sur: me dijo que yo nunca debería preguntarle al taxista el precio de un recorrido: simplemente debería subirme al carro y actuar como si supiera el precio justo y hubiera pasado toda mi vida aquí. Así no me van a engañar. En Panamá el precio correcto es 5$ para llegar a donde quieras en la ciudad.

    -Viajamos unos pocos días después del día de la separación y fue interesante observar el orgullo nacional que sentí y ví por todo lado. He leído como alguna gente dice que Panamá es un país de nacimiento artificial, una creación norteamericana para divisar Colombia y echar la mano sobre el canal. No es lo que me dijo la gente allí. Y por lo que he visto, nadie se queja de haber dejado de estar una provincia colombiana - por lo contrario.

    -Hay una pequeña comunidad china en el barrio Cangrejo y tuve la oportunidad de hacer mis compras de frutas en lengua china.



CARTAGENA

    -De Panamá fuimos a Cartagena. ¡Estábamos muy felices de pisar por primera vez el suelo suramericano! Hay que decir que la diferencia al pasar del país más rico de America central a Colombia fue un pequeño choque. También se siente que la población es mucho más grande que en Panamá.

    -La ciudad antigua de Cartagena es hermosa de verdad, aunque no es tan extraordinaria como la describen los guías de viaje. Tal vez es difícil gozar de su belleza cuando hay tantos carros y ambulantes muy insistentes a cada esquina. Igual que en Panamá, creo que todo sería mucho mejor si hicieran una transformación pietonal del casco viejo, de modo que los autos y motos no puedan entrar.

    -El español que se habla por acá sigue siendo difícil de entender para mí. Los silabeos son como todos pegados juntos, y las frases son llenas de interjecciones que no suelo oír, pero me gusta como la gente habla. Me sorprendió un poco que, devolviéndome el cambio, una vendedora me dijo “aquí tiene mi amor” en el supermercado. Mi impresión es que las mujeres aquí son muy cariñosas y sonrientes, y los hombres al revés son un poco gruñones.

    -Sigue haciendo errores muy tontos en español: confundo lo masculino y lo femenino. Busco los cajeros automáticos, pero pregunto por “las cajeras automáticas.” No me entienden, por supuesto, y me indican donde se quedan “las escaleras.” Errores muy, muy tontos causados por mi falta de práctica.

    -No lo sabía antes de venir, pero la cantidad de prostitutas en las calles de Cartagena de noche es alucinante. Lo menciono aquí porque en ningún de los guías de viaje que he leído han hablado de eso, sin embargo no se puede ignorar. En la noche en algunos lugares del antiguo casco hay que abrirse camino a codazos entre una multitud de chicas muy poco vestidas que hacen proposiciones muy directas. ¡No las molestia ni un poco que mi esposa estaba a mi lado! Ojalá alguien me hubiera prevenido. Ahora entiendo un poco mejor esa canción:




PEREIRA-SALENTO


    -Entonces nos mudamos para la zona cafetera, en el departamento de Quindío, donde proviene una gran parte del café colombiano. Encontramos algunos turistas en el pueblo, la major parte colombianos y unos cuantos extranjeros.

    -Salento es un gran pueblo escondido entre las montañas que subsiste del café y del turismo. Se queda en altitud alta con temperaturas muy agradables. ¡Que alivio después del aire húmedo y pesado del Caribe! Hay una pequeña plaza, una larga calle commercial y muchos jeeps Willys que traen a los turistas a la valle del Cocora. ¡Hermoso lugar! El atmósfera es refrescante, por todos lados somos rodeados de altas palmas verdes, hay un olor de café permanente flotando sobre el pueblo y la gente paisa es muy acogedora.

    -Entiendo a la gente de Quindío un poco mejor que a los costeños de la zona caribeña. No sé si hablan más despacio o si pronuncian las finales de las palabras más claramente, o quizás las dos cosas. Del otro lado, tengo la impresión que mi español no se mejora y que al contrario se deteriora. ¿Sera que yo hablo ahora más espontáneamente? Trato de no pensar mucho antes de abrir la boca y de hablar del corazón y no con mi cabeza. Pero mi corazón no sabe nada de gramática. Mi impresión es que mi español es mucho mejor cuando estoy un poco nervioso y que repito las frases en mi mente antes de hablar con la gente.

    -La cantidad de “marica” que los Colombianos pueden hacer caber en sólo una frase siempre me sorprenderá. Yo sé que no se usa en su significación original, y que ya se ha convertido en una palabra cualquiera, pero fue un poco sorprendente al principio.

    -Antes de visitar Colombia he leído no sé cuántos libros sobre la historia reciente del país, la “violencia” y las guerrilleras. En un libro escrito por rehenes norteamericanos detenidos por las FARC, ellos insisten muchos en las botas: tener buenas botas es algo essential para sobrevivir en la selva y los bosques colombianos. Son objetos de gran valor. Estábamos caminando hacia el mirador en el valle de Cocora cuando empezó a llover. El sendero se tornó enseguida en un rio de lodo muy resbaladizo. Fue una lata bajarse de la montaña y entendí un poco mejor el tema. También me a siempre costado entender como un país como Colombia pudo dejar caer un gran parte de su territorio sobre el control de grupúsculos armados. Después de haber experimentado un poco la geografía del país, ahora sí empiezo a entender.

    -Estábamos llenos de excitación antes de probar el café colombiano, pero lo que se llama el “tinto” colombiano, que es muy barato y que la gente bebe aquí, no es café de verdad. Se parece más a agua caliente con color negro. He bebido a té que sabía más a café que el tinto colombiano. Me dijeron que la razón es que los granos de alta calidad salen todos por exportación, y lo que queda y que no sirve para el mercado internacional es el material principal del tinto. Por suerte hay muchos pequeños cafés y franquicias de Juan Valdez por todas partes que sí venden café que sabe rico de verdad.

    -En el taxi que nos llevó de vuelta a Pereira tuve une larga conversación con el taxista, un hombre paiso bien genial. Desafortunadamente, el articulaba un poco perezosamente y tuve que hacerlo repetir sus palabras no sé cuántas veces. En el camino el nos mostró una hacienda de un narcotraficante extradito a los EEUU en los 90s que sigue siendo abandonada hasta el día de hoy. Fue muy interesante hablar sobre Betancourt, el ELN y Pedro con un Colombiano de verdad, y no a través de los medias de comunicación.

    -Otro pequeño choque cultural: antes de viajar he leído mucho sobre el clasismo en America del Sur y en Colombia en particular. En el mismo libro que ya mencioné, los rehenes norteamericanos describen de manera muy negativa la manera con la cual algunos rehenes colombianos, incluyendo a Betancourt, se comportaron al respecto de otras personas de condición más humilde: con arrogancia y superioridad. Y yo también tuve la misma reacción cuando presencié esa misma cosa en mi hotel de Salento. En el tiempo del desayuno dos señoras de Medellín se sentaron a nuestro lado, con pelo bien hecho y ropa que se veía muy carra. Hablaron a la chica que preparaba el desayuno como no hablo ni siquiera a un perro. La criticaron por no haber tal o tal cosa y se burlaron de ella diciendo algo como: “Me siento como estuviera en casa, tú pareces a mi crianza”. Todo eso con risitas, tuteando y en un tono bastante arrogante. Claro, la cocinera no se rió, ni siquiera sonrió, pero también no demostró cualquiera resistencia. Mi impresión es que no solamente quisieron humiliarla, pero también quisieron que todos los huéspedes del hotel testimoniaron de esta escena, como para imponer una relación bien clara de superioridad.

GUATAPE-MEDELLIN

    -De Pereira fuimos para Antioquia. Guatapé es un pueblito lleno de colores que queda no lejos de Medellín, que goza de alta popularidad entre los Colombianos. Decidimos quedarnos una noche y no nos arrepentimos: la mayor parte de los turistas vienen de Medellín y regresan en la tarde, así que de noche el pueblo se queda muy tranquilo. Pudimos caminar despacio y disfrutar del pueblo quasi vacío.

    -En Guatapé nos sentamos al lado de un turista inglés en un restaurante. El no hablaba ni una palabra de español. No creo que sea un problema en sí mismo, que yo también he viajado en cuantos países sin hablar la lengua local, pero ese wey no hacía el menor esfuerzo para adaptar su inglés: el hablaba a la misma velocidad y con las mismas expresiones que se usan en su país. Los meseros sabían un poco de inglés, pero no entendieron nada. Hay gente que realmente no sabe como simplificar su hablar para comunicarse con hablantes de otros lenguas y eso me sorprende cada vez que lo veo.

    -Llegamos en Medellín en la tarde y como la mayor parte de los gringos elegimos quedarnos en el barrio Poblado. La ciudad se ve muy impresionante: esta ubicada en el centro de un gran valle y es separada en dos por un río y una carretera central. De ambos lados en las montañas se destacan los barrios, algunos muy altos. Por eso la ciudad construyó un sistema de metrocables muy ingenioso.

    -Según yo, lo más interesante y lo que vale más la pena visitar en Medellín es justamente subirse en el Metrocable hasta los barrios más altos de la ciudad. Con un solo billete de metro, pudimos subir hasta el mirador de La Aurora con vista a un gran parte del valle. Después caminamos en la Comuna 13, que hoy en día se transformó en una calle comercial por los turistas. El “pueblito paiso” es una atracción turística muy popular en Medellín, pero es una pérdida de tiempo total y definitivo. No vale la pena ni siquiera visitarlo por la vista a la ciudad: no se ve nada de por los arboles. Lo único interesante en este lugar fue ver como las policías arrestaron a un motorista justo frente a nosotros, y le pidieron que retirara parte de su ropa para asegurarse de que no tenía armas.

    -Por decir la verdad, no me gustó mucho Medellín. Es difícil caminar por las calles que hay tantos motos y autos que el aire se siente sucio. La belleza de Colombia se ve en sus pequeños pueblos, pero no en sus ciudades - que a mí me parecen muy poco agradables, como monstruos sobrepoblados que crecieron demasiado rápido.

    -En Antioquia me encantó la manera de hablar de la gente. No sé si es algo típico de los habitantes paisos, pero tienen una acentuación que no oí ni en Cartagena, ni en el eje cafetero, ni en Bogota. Hablan de manera muy “cantante”, con vocales muy largas, que se parece mucho a como los italianos hablan. No todos hacen así, claro, pero mucha gente alarga y exagera la pronunciación: “Es éééso?” y “que pááása?” Dicen “Graaacias” de la misma manera que dicen “Graaaazie”.

    -Ví la palabra “Permanentemente” usada no en el sentido de “de manera permanente”, pero en el sentido “de manera constante/repetitiva”: “Lávense las manos permanentemente”. No sé porque, pero lo veo un poco raro.

    -Si a los Mexicanos les gusta usar la expresión “¿Mande?”, a los Colombianos les encanta la frase “A la orden”. Se escucha por todas partes: de los ambulantes en las calles, de los meseros en los restaurantes, en las tiendas, etcétera.

JARDÍN

    -Ya lo dije, pero vale la pena repetirlo: los pueblos de Colombia son absolutamente encantadores. Jardín es un buen ejemplo de eso: un poblado pequeño, muy limpio, lleno de vida y de tradición paisa. Si usted tiene la chance de viajar por allí, lo recomiendo muchísimo. No hay nada de particular a ver en sí mismo. Simplemente caminar por su plaza y sus calles, subir a la montaña, ver a los poblados paisos cabalgando a caballo, tomar cervezas en sus cafés y probar las picadas locales es una experiencia muy auténtica a sólo 4 horas de bus de Medellín. Quisiera haber pasado más tiempo allí.

    -La comida colombiana no es famosa, y no voy a mentir, no todo lo que comimos nos gustó: a veces le falta sabor y tuvimos que pedir salsa picante para aumentar el gusto. Pero sí hay cosas que saben muy ricas y que nos encantaron. La bandeja paisa se parece mucho al desayuno típico canadiense y por eso nos gustó, pero no podemos considerarlo como algo muy ajeno. El ajiaco y el sancocho son muy buenos también: es algo que podría haber cocinado mi abuela. La picada con tripas y salsichas es muy rica y acompaña muy bien unas cervezas frescas, especialmente cuando acaban de la sacar del grillo. Los dedos de queso y buñuelos con queso no me gustaron, pero mi esposa se los ha comido todos los días. Lo mejor que hemos probado fue la trucha. Comimos truchas no sé cuántas veces, a la milanesa, al carbón, asada, a la criolla, y cada vez nos encantó. Fue un poco raro porque también hay truchas en Canadá, muchas truchas por decir la verdad, pero nunca las comemos.

    -Viajar durante el mundial a sido algo muy educativo: no me intereso ni lo mínimo en fútbol, pero todos hablan sólo de eso todo el tiempo. Estábamos en Jardín durante el partido México-Argentina y realmente el pueblo entero estaba viendo la televisión. Las calles estaban totalmente desertadas. En la noche hubo otro partido: el Dim de Medellín contra el America de Cali, y supe que el Dim ganó cuando los hinchas se pusieron a cantar a plena voz la canción de su club:



SAN GIL-BARICHARA


    -De Medellín fuimos para Bucaramanga. Nuestro vuelo fue demorado, así que llegamos tarde en la noche. No queríamos dormir en Bucaramanga, así que contratamos un taxi para ir directo a San Gil. Amigos viajeros, les ruego, ¡no tomen un taxi de noche para cruzar el cañón de Chicamocha! Por primera vez en mi vida yo pensé que me iba a morir en la carretera, con mi taxi aplastado por los camiones o fracasado contra la pared del cañón. Manejan a la brava y me pareció que la carretera entera esta clasificada como “zona de alta accidentad”. Fue muy espantoso. Peor aún: nos perdimos el paisaje por la obscuridad.

    -Recorrimos rápidamente San Gil, que no tiene nada de particular. Seguimos a Barichara que tiene el apodo del “más hermoso pueblo de Colombia”. ¡Y con razón! Es realmente un lugar precioso, ubicado sobre una montaña, con grandes casas blancas y verdes, y caminos de piedra. Si hay un lugar que merece la pena visitar en Colombia, es Barichara, aunque es un poco aislado y que tuvimos que cambiar de bus dos o tres veces para llegar hasta acá. Probamos la especialidad local: costillas de cabrito al carbón, ¡fue delicioso!

    -Entiendo muy mal la gente de Santander: hablan muy rápido, no tienen la pronunciación apoyada de los antioqueños. Todo es más corto, más seco, y debo pedir que repiten a menudo. Estaba sentado al lado de dos vaqueros en el bus, ellos discutieron por 45 minutos y no voy a mentir: no entendí mucho de lo que decían. Hablaban de la lluvia y del hundimiento de una vía, pero usaban muchas palabras que no reconocí.

    -La gran diversidad de los acentos en Colombia es algo que no sabía. Yo no puedo identificar con certitud la origen regional de la gente que encuentro, pero cuándo me sentí al lado de una mesa de turistas santaferenos, se escuchaba muy claramente la diferencia del hablar entre la gente de Bogota y de Santander.

    -En el bus, cuando quieren bajar, dicen ¿Me regala una parada?, lo que me suena muy poético. De todos modos es mejor que gritar ¡Bajan! Además todos agradezcan al chofer al bajar. Dicen “Que pena” en lugar de “Lo siento” o perdón.

    -La moneda nacional también tiene su particularidad: dicen “seis quinientos”, que significa seis mil quinientos pesos. Dos trescientos significa 2,300$. Hubo un poco de confusión al principio, pero tuvimos que acostumbrarse.

VILLA DE LEYVA

    -Fuimos en bus hasta Tunja y de Tunja hasta Villa de Leyva, otro centro turístico de los Andes colombianos, en el departamento de Boyaca. El pueblo es muy hermoso, con la plaza la más grande del país, si no me equivoco. Creo que a los santaferenos les gusta venir aquí para descansar y topamos con muchos turistas. Y con razón: es un pueblo precioso, con grandes casas blancas sobre un fondo de altas montañas verdes. Yo diría que es más interesante que Jardín, pero un poco demasiado comercializado en comparación a Barichara. De todos modos los tres pueblos valen la pena visitarlos.

    -La plaza principal de Leyva es el lugar más animado del pueblo. Cuando las nieblas se van y el cielo se pone azul, la vista acá es rebuena. Me gusta sentarme en ese tipo de plazas, tomar café y no más mirar a la gente que pasa por acá. Estábamos acá cuándo un viejo se sentó cerca de nosotros con su perro. Apenas unos minutos después el perro se puso a ladrar a una pareja de jóvenes que caminaba por allí. El joven se asustó y dijo algo que no entendí. El viejo se levantó y respondió algo muy rápido que también no entendí, pero claramente no se trataba de buenas palabras. La pareja se fue a pasos rápidos y el viejo se dirigió a mi y me dijo en un inglés nueva-yorkeno perfecto: “whatever you do, buddy, never trust Venezuelan people.” Se sentó y empezamos a hablar. El nos contó su vida: el nació en Tunja y se fue a México cuando era joven. El cruzó la frontera norte a pie en la noche con la ayuda de coyotes. El se quedó a los EEUU donde trabajó 25 años, hasta pagó a una mujer judía para casarse con ella (“only business, no sex”, insistió el) y obtener la tarjeta verde. Finalmente se retiró y volvió a Boyaca, dónde compró tierra con sus ahorros. El tiene no sé cuántos hijos, todos de mujeres diferentes, que viven aquí en Tunja y allí en Florida. Le pregunté como sabía que la pareja venía de Venezuela y me explicó que sólo le necesitaba oír unas palabras para reconocer el acento venezolano. Fue muy interesante la conversación.

    -Una chica en el bus gritó: “En la última parada”, y supongo que “última” aquí significa “próxima”. No estoy cierto.

    -En el supermercado el guardia nos dijo: “Que os vaya bien”. Fue la primera vez que oí el voseo en Latinoamérica y me sorprendió un poco, porque ni siquiera sabía que los Colombianos voseaban. Busqué en internet y me perdí en una verdadera madriguera de conejos: el voseo en Colombia. Encontré cosas muy interesantes:


“Se podría decir que es en Antioquia y en su capital Medellín en donde el voseo está más presente y vivo que en el resto del territorio colombiano. Se acepta la idea de que en ninguna otra zona del país parece alcanzar el voseo tal generalidad e intensidad de uso en todas las clases sociales como en el departamento de Antioquia. Esto aplica también para la zona que conocemos como el Paisaje Cultural Cafetero”


Image

Fuente: https://www.upb.edu.co/es/voseo-en-colombia

¡Caramba! Por eso me sonaba tan raro como hablaba la gente del eje cafetero y de Medellín: es muy possible que usaban el voseo entre ellos y que por eso no pude entender mucho de lo que decían. Entendía muy bien de que se trataba el tema de la conversación, pero no de quién hablaba. ¿Sera por culpa del voseo, y no por mi falta de práctica?

Otro artículo hace una comparación entre Colombia y Argentina:

“Contrario a los argentinos, los colombianos no vosean todo el tiempo y el voseo tiene un fuerte elemento de clase social y es generacional. Es decir, un argentino vosea casi siempre y con casi todo el mundo, sin importar clase social, estatus o generaciones, pero no así en Colombia.
En el español colombiano el uso del pronombre Usted es muy usual y no tiene la misma connotación de formalidad natural de otros países. En España se dirige el Usted a una persona que no se conoce o quien tiene un estatus social o cargo público mayor. No así en Colombia en donde se utiliza de manera general.
Un paisa, por ejemplo, no utiliza el vos todo el tiempo y no lo dirige a todas las personas. En este caso el vos tiene una connotación, un significado relacional que es necesario tener en cuenta. El paisa utiliza en cambio el Usted de manera general y lo dirige a todas las personas de cualquier edad o condición. Eso es posible demostrarlo si usted va a Medellín y ve a cualquier ciudadano que habla con un mendigo o con un policía, con el hijo o con el alcalde: «¿Mija, a qué horas vuelve usted?», «Vea niño, usted está retrasado, apurese».
El vos en cambio tiene una exclusividad social y un sentido relacional:
Se utiliza siempre de manera confidencial, entre personas de la misma edad o condición. Incluso los hijos sienten que tratar de vos a los padres es una falta grave de respeto.
En un discurso en donde se utiliza el vos, quien lo hace tiene una cierta autoridad sobre quien le escucha, especialmente si son jóvenes y denota una gran cercanía: «Joven, sabé que la vida espera mucho de vos».
En conclusión, el voseo colombiano está fuertemente acompañado del usted colombiano, que no tiene la connotación total de formalidad que posee en otras regiones hispanoamericanas.”


Fuente: https://pasaportecolombiano.wordpress.c ... olombiano/

Los comentarios son muy interesantes y indican que la situación es mucho más complicada que lo puede representar una sola mapa:

“Acá, en mi ciudad Ocaña, en Norte de Santander, el voseo es generalizado, siempre se utiliza a excepción de cuando se habla con personas que no se le tiene mucha confianza, ahí si se habla de usted, de resto todo se habla de vos.”


“En Colombia también se vosea en la zona del norte de Santander aledaña a Ocaña y por lo que veo mucho más que en las zonas paisas. Su uso es generalizado y sólo es reemplazado para las personas de más jerarquía como personas mayores y profesores.”


    -Según esa información que leí, los Boyacanses no “vosean”, así que es posible que este empleado fue de origen antioqueño. Que pena, no tuve el tiempo de preguntarle. Pero ¿no sera un poco extraño por un empleado de supermercado de vosear a los clientes? Pues no lo conozco ni de cerca ni de lejos.

    -De todos modos, haber subido eso antes de viajar, yo me hubiera mejor preparado escuchando audios y videos con el voseo. Quizás me hubiera sido más fácil entender a los Antioqueños.

    -Probé la sopa típica de Boyacá, la changua, que es una sopita de leche y huevos muy buena. Me parece que las arepas también son muy diferentes según los restaurantes y las regiones. No me gustaron en Cartagena pero aquí sí son muy ricas.

BOGOTA

    -La destinación final de nuestro viaje y capital del estado colombiano. Llegamos en bus desde Tunja y mi primera impresión fue que la ciudad se ve muy bien desarrollada. Fuimos a la parte norte y oeste que tiene grandes centros comerciales con edificios altos y modernos. Dicen que Medellín es la ciudad más rica del país porque tiene metro, pero ahora no sé si es verdad o sólo orgullo antioqueño. Lo único que nos causó problemas en los primeros días fue el tráfico: es horrible. Una verdadera pesadilla. En la hora pico un recorrido de sólo 5 km puede tomar 45 minutos en taxi. Claro que sería más rápido a pie pero hay lugares donde mejor no caminar.



    -Tan pronto llegamos que tuve que enfrentarme a dos situaciones muy estresantes que empujaron mi español a su límite. De primera, el hotel anuló nuestra reservación y tuvimos que trasladarnos de repente a otro hotel y negociar los precios con ellos. Segundo, fuimos a un supermercado para comprar granos de café y los agentes de seguridad me sospechaban de haber robado una bolsa de Juan Valdez. En los dos casos, tuve que aclarar la situación usando mi español pésimo. Lo logré, pero tuve de haber dicho algunas cosas muy chistosas porque la gente se puso a reír viendo lo que me costaba resolver el asunto. Por suerte, al final todo se arregló, recibí disculpas de los agentes de seguridad y desayuno gratis del hotel como compensación por la molestia.

    -Mi primera impresión es que los santaferenos son gente con alto nivel de educación y muy formales con el lenguaje. Nos dicen todo el tiempo “si señor”, “si señora,” “a sus ordenes”, “un placer servirlos, señor”. Me suena un poco raro, porque las relaciones me parecieron más horizontales y igualitarias en los pueblos, pero la gente sigue siendo muy amistosa y acogedora.

    -El segundo día subimos al Monserrate: la vista es espectacular y se puede ver una gran parte de la ciudad. El cielo estaba tan claro que pudimos ver hasta el otro lado de la sabana de Bogota, a como 25 km de distancia. Después dimos un paseo por la universidad de los Andes, donde había un montón de estudiantes bebiendo café y mirando el mundial. Nos gustó mucho el atmósfera y las instalaciones se ven muy bien. Fuimos al centro histórico justo al tiempo por asistir a la ceremonia de cambio de la guardia en el palacio presidential. Fue un espectáculo impresionante: hubo cómo 200 soldados con orchestra. Hicieron una coreografía muy peculiar para bajar la bandera colombiana, saqueándola para limpiarla y doblándola. Cantaron el himno nacional y finalmente hubo un corto discurso de un ministro, al final de cual ellos gritaron ¡ajúa!, que si no me equivoco es un grito de guerra del ejército colombiano. En el público había algunos jóvenes colombianos, uno de ellos preguntó en chiste si Pedro iba a salir del palacio para saludarnos. Entonces una chica hizo una imitación quasi perfecta de la manera de hablar muy particular del nuevo presidente. Todos nos reímos mucho.

    -Antes de venir he leído sobre la Candelaria y cómo no se recomienda alojarse en esta zona, aunque sea la parte la más interesante de la ciudad. Dicen que en la noche el barrio se vuelve un poco peligroso. No lo creía o por lo menos pensaba que se trataba de problemas que surgen muy tarde en la noche. ¡Gran error! En la tarde estábamos caminando por la plaza Bolivar y los mercados de las afueras. Tan pronto como el sol se fue, a las como 6h00 de la tarde, la zona se transformó por completo. En menos de 30 minutos todas las tiendas se cerraron, las familias se fueron y quedaron en las calles sólo mendigos, vagabundos y adictos. Todo fue tan rápido que ni siquiera no nos dimos cuenta. Mi esposa y yo estábamos caminando en una calle y buscábamos un lugar para llamar un Uber. De repente una mujer de cómo 40 años trató de robar el celular de mi esposa. Siempre he pensado que si íbamos a ser atacados en la calle, sería por un hombre joven— ¡no por una mamacita gordita! Mi esposa gritó y empujó a la ladroncita, que siguió caminando a nuestro lado cómo si no hubiera pasado nada. Por suerte no hubo violencia. Entiendo mejor porque no se recomienda quedarse después del atardecer en el centro. No sé como decirlo de otra manera, pero después de ese acontecimiento, Bogota se parece mucho a los señores Jeckyll y Hyde: de día es una elegante ciudad de hispánica de los Andes orientales, con sol caliente y brisa refrescante, con gente muy amistosa y educada; de noche, "salen los espantos, andan las culebras y cantan los guacos”, como canta Zully Murillo en su linda canción.



CONCLUSIÓN

Después de México, esto fue el segundo viaje durante el cual he hablado totalmente y solamente español. Así que lo de comunicarse y de viajar en español ya no es un reto. No es fácil y a veces me cuesta, pero siento que ya es algo ordinario. Mi esposa, que no ha estudiado ni un sólo minuto el español, ya puede pedir su café y su comida en un mezcla muy extraña de español y de francés. Me sorprende cada vez que la gente la entiende y que no hace falta mi traducción.

Después de México, yo estaba un poco decepcionado de no haber sabido hablar elegantemente y de temas más profundos con la gente. Ahora ya no me preocupo por eso: puedo hacerme entender, preguntar lo que quería saber y arreglar los problemitas, y me basta. ¡Estoy muy contento con eso que ya no es nada mal!

Ahora estoy un poco harto de tanto español. Necesito descansarme un poco, alejarme de lo demasiado conocido para reencontrar mi sensación de novedad con el idioma. Así que voy a dejar de lado el español por un tiempo, hasta mi próximo viaje al sur. Tal vez yo encontraré la motivación necesaria para sacar mi alemán adelante en el futuro próximo.

¡Ojalá les gustó la música!
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