Language on Camino

[David Hough]

Some of these comments reflect my experience too!

--- Richard Ferguson <peregrinoaATT.NET> wrote:

> Galicia, a couple of times, I
> asked a question in Spanish and got an answer in
> Gallego!

I knew this regionalism stuff was serious when I
placed a phone call at the albergue in O Cebreiro
and afterward the display read "retire su tarXeta"
Only about a mile from the border with Leon province!

> point I translated for a hospitalero who did not
> speak English.

I was briefly in the position of intermediary between
a non-German speaking hospitalero and a non-Spanish
speaking pilger, in Molinaseca I think.
Talk about the blind leading the
deaf...   Fortunately somebody qualified came along
shortly.   But it shows that even two quarters of
German forgotten 30 years ago still had some residual
value.


> One problem that I have is that, although my Spanish
> is good, and my
> French usable, I am not really able to speak them
> both on the same day.  This is probably not a
> general affliction.

On the contrary, after a month of trying very hard
to think in French, I had forgotten all my recently
studied Spanish, then over the hill and after a
month in Spain trying to compose thoughts in even less
Spanish, it was hard to think in French again.  I've
heard the same from other people.


> I am a critic of foreign languages as taught in the
> US, especially in high
> school.  I went to France with a US high school
> student with two years of
> French, and she had no ability to understand what
> was said, to speak, or
> even to read most things.

All I can say is that my instructors in high school
and college all did their best to make us talk
and often talked too fast to us on purpose.
It just didn't stick without daily reinforcement
afterward.   For the
majority of Americans that will never get any
daily reinforcement in any foreign language,
I don't think it's any great crime to focus on
reading and writing that are much more likely to come
in use
in an academic career at least.    And being able
to read signs is definitely helpful on the camino!

My idea of a crime
is teaching Latin in lieu of a living language as the
sole foreign language to general students that have
not majored in classics.    As somebody else
commented,
there are hispanics in growing numbers in every major
city in the US now, and you'll learn all you need to
know of Latin in the course of studying Spanish.
We've only got so much time, let's spend it well.
Although if one were really serious about studying a
different culture expressed in its language,
Japanes and Chinese certainly fill the bill better
than almost any European language, which really
aren't that much different from English.    As usual
Basque is an exception to any generalization about
languages.



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com