Wednesday, December 13, 2006
PERRO BAJO!
I am reaching a frustration point with my language skills. I always fancied myself quite a linguist, but this Spanish, the most practical and reputedly easy language I have tried to learn yet, is stumping me. My first yoga class presented a challenge. I understood the words bend, butt cheeks, knees, chest, down dog (perro bajo), but there would be moments when I would be on my back, legs overhead and akimbo while everyone else was doing some sort of pretzel leg asana thing on their feet. Another nice touch to taking a yoga class in D.F. is that there are very few quiet places (just now I am being regaled by the distinct whistle of the knife sharpener on a bike who uses his back wheel to propel a spinning blade). The whole time we were in class, the teacher blared new age music to drown out the banda music--which somehow doesn't jive with deep breathing and sun salutations-- from a raucous party at a hair studio below.
Today I also struggled to say anything involving prepositions, nouns, ordinal and cardinal numbers, adjectives or conjugated verbs. My Spanish teacher tells me "mas despacio" that I need to speak more slowly and enunciate the words. It's so hard when the language being hurled at me sounds like verbal machine gun fire and I am expected to respond in turn.
So what will I do? Turn into the dumb gringa who says "embarazada" because it sounds like embarrassed (but really means pregnant)? Should I just write my requests on notepads worn around my neck like the tongueless characters in The World according to Garp?
I just feel as though my age has taken its toll on my tongue, making it slow, sticky and accustomed to its familiar consonant-vowel patterns. Like I should sit on a rocking chair with a corn cob pipe and say "Why when I was a young girl I could do Czech consonants...have you ever tried to say a /c/ and /t/ and an /r/ sound all together? Well, dagnabbit, I could and I was good!"
I am reaching a frustration point with my language skills. I always fancied myself quite a linguist, but this Spanish, the most practical and reputedly easy language I have tried to learn yet, is stumping me. My first yoga class presented a challenge. I understood the words bend, butt cheeks, knees, chest, down dog (perro bajo), but there would be moments when I would be on my back, legs overhead and akimbo while everyone else was doing some sort of pretzel leg asana thing on their feet. Another nice touch to taking a yoga class in D.F. is that there are very few quiet places (just now I am being regaled by the distinct whistle of the knife sharpener on a bike who uses his back wheel to propel a spinning blade). The whole time we were in class, the teacher blared new age music to drown out the banda music--which somehow doesn't jive with deep breathing and sun salutations-- from a raucous party at a hair studio below.
Today I also struggled to say anything involving prepositions, nouns, ordinal and cardinal numbers, adjectives or conjugated verbs. My Spanish teacher tells me "mas despacio" that I need to speak more slowly and enunciate the words. It's so hard when the language being hurled at me sounds like verbal machine gun fire and I am expected to respond in turn.
So what will I do? Turn into the dumb gringa who says "embarazada" because it sounds like embarrassed (but really means pregnant)? Should I just write my requests on notepads worn around my neck like the tongueless characters in The World according to Garp?
I just feel as though my age has taken its toll on my tongue, making it slow, sticky and accustomed to its familiar consonant-vowel patterns. Like I should sit on a rocking chair with a corn cob pipe and say "Why when I was a young girl I could do Czech consonants...have you ever tried to say a /c/ and /t/ and an /r/ sound all together? Well, dagnabbit, I could and I was good!"
# posted by mexitymaestra : 6:12 PM
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