In her evening Spanish class, Louise learned lessons of language and more...
It began at the grocery store, where Louise could no longer purchase potato chips without purchasing papitas crujientes, or lentils without purchasing lentejas.
It bled into work, where the insurance policies she reviewed offered subscribers the toll free number to obtain information side by side with the numero de telephono gratis para obtener informacion. In the office restroom, the toilet paper wrapper assured no peligroso para septica. She turned the wrapper over. Ah. Septic safe.
It was these experiences that led to her enrollment in a Spanish class two nights a week at the local community center. The class was led by the extremely enthusiastic Senora Smith and attended by a wide assortment of people with an equally wide assortment of reasons for taking an evening Spanish class.
John—or Juan—delivered mail and wanted to have more effective communication with his Spanish speaking customers.
William and Mary—Guillermo y Maria—were sibling nurses who did volunteer work in South America every winter. They wanted to learn terms for different parts of the body as well as how to ask the question, “Where does it hurt?” They also wanted to learn how to say “God bless you.”
Steven—known in the class as Stefan—needed Spanish lessons in order to converse with his new bride, who hailed from the Dominican Republic. They had met and married impulsively when Stefan was vacationing there, and Senora Smith was able to glean from good-natured probing that Linda spoke English about as well as Stefan spoke Spanish.
“At least he wants to talk to her,” was Gloria—or Gloriana’s—sarcastic observation. “My husband hasn’t really wanted talked to me since the first year of our marriage!”
Gloriana was taking a trip to Cancun with some girlfriends in February. She enrolled in the Spanish class in hopes of, as she put it, “getting friendly with the locals.”
It seemed Louise was alone in her choice to take Spanish simply because she was starting to see Spanish all around her. But then, in her circles she’d always been known as “the practical one.” Practicality aside, the deeper she followed Senora Smith into the tangled jungle of a new language, the more her eyes were opened to discoveries she’d never anticipated. She wasn’t just learning words and phrases. She was learning how to see the world in a completely different light.
Take the phrase, Me gusta papitas crujientes.
A rough translation, Senora Smith explained, was I like potato chips. But the literal translation was Potato chips please me. This translation, evoking much deeper emotion than the former, pleased Louise. It pleased her immensely.
Hungry for similar discoveries, she took to immersing herself in the Spanish language as best she could in a mostly non-Spanish-speaking town. She started watching telenovelas on the Spanish cable channel. To her delight, it didn’t take fluent Spanish to gather that the only real differences between Days of our Lives and Mi Corazon Triste were the names of the characters. Though she didn’t grasp every word—in fact, she didn’t grasp most of the words—she got the idea and was able to follow with minimal difficulty.
The Spanish radio station posed a greater challenge to her novice ears. After several weeks of dedicated listening, the only artist she could partially understand was the somewhat outdated Roberto Carlos. He had one song she particularly enjoyed, in which he expressed the following desire:
“Yo quiero tener un million de amigos—”
The rest of the song was a blur, but Carlos’ wish to have a million friends spoke to her on a very human level. When she listened to the song, she practiced her own Spanish by mimicking,
“Yo quiero tener un million de amigos, too.”
She had yet to learn the Spanish word for “too,” but it hardly seemed to matter. Her world was expanding before her very eyes.
Also expanding was her drive to learn and remember as much as possible from her Spanish lessons. She began to date her journal in Spanish. What was once September seventeenth became el diezisiete de Septiembre. As she encountered objects in her daily life, she tried to address them by their Spanish names. Instead of eating lunch at the table, she ate lunch at la mesa. She gazed out her office window into a cloudless blue cielo. She drove her coche to her casa, and while she enjoyed a Healthy Choice entrée for la sena, she watched Mi Corazon Triste, her telenovela. Her world grew even bigger.
She was at work the first time she used Spanish to communicate with an actual Spanish speaker. It happened over her lunch hour. She entered the cafeteria to discover Inez Gutierrez standing at one of the microwaves and heating a sandwich. (“Sandwich” was Louise’s favorite cognate—meaning the word for sandwich was identical in Spanish and in English. Only the pronunciation was different.) Supposing she could use this tidbit to strike up a bona fide Spanish conversation, she headed in Inez’s direction. Her effort was cut short when two women walked up behind her and approached the snack machine. Their voices were loud and filled the room.
“So I’m at the bank, right?” the first woman barked in a tone of unmistakable annoyance. “I drive up to the ATM, and guess what it says on the screen? It says I have to pick English or Spanish before I can proceed with my transaction. Can you believe that? This is the United States of America! English shouldn’t be a choice—it should be the default!”
To which the second woman replied, “Isn’t that ridiculous? I mean, these people want to come here and make a better life for themselves, but they don’t want to learn the language.”
“It shouldn’t be legal,” the first woman agreed. “if they can’t speak English, they should just be sent home.”
Oblivious to Inez’s presence—or to anyone’s for that matter—the two women continued their discussion while they selected their snacks. Louise ventured a glance at Inez. With her back to the room, she stood perfectly still and kept her eyes on the microwave count down.
Quince, catorce, trece, doce, once, diez, nueve—.
Her shoulders slumped forward a little. She seemed to get smaller.
“Inez?” Louise called over the chatter of the other two women.
The eyes that met hers were full of reservation—and hurt.
“Lo siento,” Louise said.
This simple phrase—an apology with a meaning that was the same in Spanish and in English—ignited something new in the brown eyes of Inez.
Relief?
Gratitude?
“Thank you,” she said in perfect English.
Hope?
She smiled, and the world got bigger still.
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Reviewed by Jane Rodway
11/28/2005
I really enjoyed this. I love languages and they really do open up the world. It is interesting when translating a language literally, to see the difference which is often deeper. The end of this is the sad truth of how many people think. My great-grandmother spoke very little english after she immigrated here from Italy, and she never could read english until the day she died at 98. I think many people have no clue what it is like to be dropped in a foreign country and trying to start a new and better life. This story shows the beauty of the spanish language and how it really does make people closer- or further apart.
Reviewed by Alexandra Riera
11/28/2005
It's difficult to learn a language and the only way to do it is by inmeersing yourself in it. It's sad when you find there are people who do not understand that for some it's more difficult than for others and when people leave their country it's in the belief that they will lead a better life.. Nice story...
It began at the grocery store, where Louise could no longer purchase potato chips without purchasing papitas crujientes, or lentils without purchasing lentejas.
