Milk It!

One of the many things I find fascinating about the Spanish language is the importance of the word milk, or leche. It is of course used to describe the white liquid that comes from mammals, but in addition to the literal meaning, such as café con leche (coffee with milk) it's also commonly used either as an exclamation or as part of an expression.

Here are some examples.

• importar tres leches - to mind three milks, which means to not care at all. For example, me importa tres leches qué opinas. I don't care at all what your opinion is.
• ser la leche - to be the milk, which means to be unbelievable or great. It can be used literally such as, Soy la leche, he aprobado todos los exámenes. I'm great, I passed all of my exams, or sarcastically, Eres la leche, macho. You're unbelievable, dude.
• de la leche - of the milk, which means more than a lot, as hell. Hoy hace un solazo de la leche. Today is sunny as hell.  Hace un calor de la leche. It's hot as hell. (I wish!)
• a toda leche - to all the milk, which means at full speed. Salimos corriendo a toda leche. We ran out at full speed.
• ¡leche! - dammit! ¡Leche! Me he pillado el dedo con la puerta. Dammit! I caught my finger in the door.
• estar de mala / buena leche - to be in a bad / good milk which refers to someone's mood. ¿Estas de buena o mala leche hoy? Are you in a good or bad mood today?
• tener leche en las venas (en vez de sangre) - to have milk in your veins (instead of blood), meaning you show no affection or you lack of drive.
• cagarse en la leche - to shit in the milk, which is what you do when angry.

Not sure why leche is so prevalent in the Spanish vernacular. Any ideas? Also, feel free to add more if there are. All this talk of milk is making me hungry for cereal.

Gloomy

After hinting at summer last week, the weather took a bit of a turn for the worse right around the time Standard & Poors downgraded Spain's credit rating. This news was followed by unemployment reaching twenty percent and the forecast this week calls for rain so the outlook isn't too sunny right now.

The recent spat of bad economic news was followed by some thoughtful articles highlighting the differences between the Spanish situation and Greece in terms of government debt, pointing out that even while downgrading the country, S & P found little chance of Spain going into default.  This is, of course, great news, but it doesn't mean it's hunky dory since public debt is only part of the equation.

Sources: Bloomberg, IMF, European Union Commission Estimates

As the data shows and the related article explains, Spain's problem isn't so much its public debt percentage, which is actually lower than Germany's, but its current account balance, which is a combination of public and private debt. The latter was used primarily to fund the real estate bubble  and when it popped, there's been nothing to replace it other than government spending because the economy's been nothing but construction and tourism the last twenty years.

So the one bright spot, its public debt, is increasing as a result of the crisis. At the same time, private sector debt, mostly tied up in mortgages, is increasing due to the housing crash. Meanwhile, the international community is calling for a period of wage deflation as prices continue to rise. Growth isn't projected until 2011 and even then it'll be anemic, which means there's little hope of the unemployment situation turning around anytime soon despite what the Spanish president says. That's the best case scenario.

One of the tragic ironies is, just when Spain has found a way to harness its famous sun for something other than tourism and become a player in the emerging renewable energy market, the subsidies needed to help nascent groups like T-Solar might be cut in the name of austerity. It makes me wonder if there had been less building and more investing where the country would be now.  Of course, I've never understood why a French company, Alstom, won the contract to build the trains for the Barcelona metro either. Sometimes is seems the only thing Spanish are the banks and their empty buildings anymore. Actually, that's not true; there's the chiringuito once the clouds pass and summer finally arrives.

Studying Spanish in Barcelona

I've received a few messages lately from people asking about studying Spanish in Barcelona compared to other cities in Spain. In fact, this topic was recently covered in the NY Times where the questioner wondered if Catalan might interfere with her ability to learn.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend Barcelona if you're Spanish level is zero, or low, and your goal is to return home with a strong command of the language. Not because of the Catalan, but for the same reasons I wouldn't recommend LA or New York or even London as places for Spanish speakers to learn English; namely, it's too easy not to speak it and still get by and have a good time.

As I've mentioned before, Barcelona is a vibrant and cosmopolitan city full of people from seemingly every country of the world, many of whom speak English well enough to have a conversation. If you're at the beginning stages of learning Spanish, it might be tough to resist the temptation to switch to English to save yourself the embarrassment of struggling to form a simple sentence. This isn't of course to say you won't learn anything, but probably not as much as you could as say if you went to Salamanca.

For those of you with a mid to advance level of Castellano, Barcelona is still a majority Spanish speaking city, although you can't help but notice the influence of Catalan since you're in Catalunya. Still, it's not so much that it'll inhibit your ability to learn and never have I felt forced to speak it or had problems over it. Most Spaniards and Catalans are just happy you're making an effort to speak a foreign language and some may talk to you in English because they too want to practice. If you already have a strong command of Spanish, I'd recommend making an effort to learn of to speak and understand Catalan because it will give you a more complete view of the city. If you don't, few people here will hold it against you, though.

The advice I always give Spanish speakers who can already defend themselves in English is: don't study the language, instead go and study something in the language. Take a class in a subject that interests you and your fluency will improve ten-fold, I think. There's nothing like community college in the states, but there are private schools offering different courses on say photography or jewelry making that run as much as a language school and in my opinion is money better spent.

Catalunya or Catalonia

Once in a while I'll get someone asking me why I use Catalunya instead of Catalonia and I guess it's because it was how I first got to know the place and it's not difficult to pronounce, so in my mind I've always lived in Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain and not Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. But I think the point of the question is why use the Catalan word when there's an English equivalent.

The beauty of the English language, I think, is that it's truly organic. There's no governing body like the royal academy in Madrid or the French institute in Paris where a bunch of old men sit around and decide what's a word and what's not. I often wondered what it'd be like to attend one, though. How they decide on the gender of an object or which of the three conjugations a verb falls into must be a fascinating discussion. I guess there's Cambridge and Oxford, but since most English speakers live far away from the UK, their opinions don't carry much weight. Thinking about it, English really is a populist language influenced more by the street than kings as it has been for much of it's history. Three cheers for English!

Perhaps, living in Los Angeles, where my last address was La Cañada Drive which was down the street from Los Feliz Avenue (Yup, we use incorrect Spanish too)  made my brain more receptive to incorporating non-English words for locations and addresses, making it a So Cal, spanglish, thang, but that would suggest we, angelenos, are unique. One just needs to listen to the news and hear names followed by  formerly known as...to know that's not the case. Not to mention the many instances where a foreign word is commonly used and accepted despite there being an English equivalent: siesta for nap, cilantro for coriander (which I just had to look up), carte blanche for free reign, coups d' état for military overthrow. And if you're a Catalan reading this, this is a good thing, right? To see your land known in your language as Catalunya world wide. It's better than Cataluña, no? You are Catalans not Catalonians, are you not?

This debate of course is not unique to the English language. I listen to friends of mine here discuss if it's pijo to use an English word when there's an equivalent like slides for diapositivas or tomar un break for descansar, although lately it seems most new words approved by the royal academy are English with an accent somewhere and designated male gender or they just stick an -ing at the end. Honestly, how they can call themselves learned men of language and allow words like footing or trekking to become officially Spanish is beyond me. If they really appreciated language, they wouldn't completely bastardized the meaning and think of something different or at least use the correct word. Okay, so jogging (hoagging)  might be tough for a Spaniard to say, but running is better than footing and all it takes is a concise English-Spanish dictionary and reading the definition of a foot to see that. I mean, pieando?

Maybe, during these distressed economic times, when deficits are forcing the government to cut services, the first thing to go should be the royal academy, followed by every other linguistic governing board in every single autonomy. As the evidence shows they obviously haven't a clue about the subject on which they're supposed to be experts and the best way to watch a language grow is to throw off the shackles of the tyrannical linguistic agencies! Just imagine how much time, money and energy would be saved and what a more peaceful place it would be. Ah, just imagine that remotest of remote possibilities...


****************************

Update


After some back and forth with Tom from the Badrash in the comments section, there's a poll for you - the reader - to voice your opinions on this. Let the people speak!

Learning The Languages

Often times when I talk to someone who's leaving Barcelona, they'll mention the work situation and the fact Spanish or Catalan is required for many positions as the reasons they're leaving and I'll wonder if they know how that sounds. I mean, what did you expect?  True, Barcelona presents unique challenges to learning Spanish if you haven't studied it before and there's the separate question of Catalan, but come on - it's a foreign country, so as my grandmother says, shame on you if you haven't learned enough of the local language to order a beer and ask for change correctly after a year. 

Like I said, Barcelona isn't the easiest place to learn Spanish despite the fact it's in Spain. The large expat population of native English speakers, not to mentioned other Europeans, makes it entirely possible to have an international circle of friends where English is the common language. I know many people who have been here for years living like this, speaking little to no Spanish; yet they still thoroughly enjoy the city and are in many ways its biggest fans.

Another obstacle to learning Spanish is the local people. I don't think it's particularly controversial to say Catalans tend to be more reserved and insular compared to the rest of Spaniards, preferring to go home rather than grab drinks with colleagues after work. One of my first students told me I made a mistake coming here instead of Madrid for this very reason and I have to admit it took some getting used to the closed nature of the people. Still, while not as jovial as Andalucians, they aren't statues and often all it requires is for you to initiate the conversation, but in order to do this it helps to know the language. You don't expect them to speak to you in English, do you?

If you can't speak Spanish, then you are limiting your work options to basically teaching for a school or company, bar-tending in an Irish pub or answering phones in a call center. Compared the wages a Spaniard would get for doing the same things, you're doing okay in terms of money, but perhaps they're not for everybody or if you want to live here full time.  For those with an entrepreneurial drive, I think there are a lot of opportunities but you'll need to eventually deal with the infamous Spanish bureaucracy or suppliers which means you'll need to learn the language.

For those looking for a more stable and secure environment like office work, even if it's a multinational and English is the official language, you're nevertheless in Spain. Still, being a native English speaker is like having a second degree, having work experience in the states or the UK is a real feather in the cap, so if you can speak Spanish too, you definitely have an advantage, even in these depressed times. In fact, in every company I've taught at over the years there's always been one or two highly valued guiris working there.

You don't even have to speak it fluently, just competently, such are the low expectations people have that foreigners will speak their language. And, while maybe Barcelona isn't the optimum location, you're still in Spain with Spanish television, neighbors, and bars where you can easily practice if you're willing to make even a minimal effort. As for the question of Catalan, if you've chosen to make Barcelona home, despite what you might think of the politics, it's a respect thing and learning it will open even more doors.

This isn't to say learning Spanish or Catalan will guarantee your move to Barcelona will be a success, but I think it's safe to say that it will greatly improve your chances and overall experience.  So please, don't ever blame the need to speak the local language as a reason for leaving because it reveals more about you than the city and not in a positive way.

Top 20 Spanish Expressions

Like any language, Spanish is rich with expressions and sayings, which if you can use correctly during conversations, immediately boosts your standing in the eyes of the natives. Here are my top twenty.

1. cutre [koo-trey]- this word covers everything from seedy to uncool and I've yet to find an exact match in English. Examples of being cutre include small, authentic Spanish bars with an ever present smell of tobacco and frying oil, carrying your towels and sunscreeen in a plastic bag to the beach, a sweater with holes, a Spanish electrical switch box, etc.

2. un fantasma - The direct translation means " a ghost" but this word is used to describe someone who is not what they appear to be. Usually a person who talks a big game and tends to exaggerate.

3. Como Dios manda - Literally translated, "As God sends," you drop this phrase to demonstrate that you will do something well. For example, cooking dinner tonight? como dios manda, meaning yes and well.

4. mala leche - Bad milk is what a grumpy or surly person has. see: funcionario

5. Más vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer - A Spanish expression that sums up their attitude to risk.  Roughly translated it means: "A known bad is worth more than something good to be known."  I guess it means - stick with something even if it's bad rather than know something better. But it's open to interpretation.

6. tio/tia, macho - similar to dude or mate. ¿Qué pasa, tia? "What's up, girl?"  Mancho. Vamos a hacerlo. "Dude - Let's do it."

7. un cortado - a shot of strong Spanish coffee, closer to espresso, topped with warm milk. Normally drunk after lunch.

8. cul i merda - a Catalan expression that translates as "ass and shit." It's what you say when things or people perfectly compliment each other.

9. montar un pollo - "to mount the chicken," which is what someone does when they cause a scene in public.

10. pajas mentales - "mental wanks" is what you say someone has who you think is delusional or tends to create something out of nothing.It can also be used to describe someone who thinks they are greater than they are.

11. bicho malo nunca muere - A bad bug never dies.

12. tener el mono - you have the monkey when you're craving something.

13. Estar empanado - "To be breaded" is the expression to use when describing someone who's a little on the slow side.

14. el vermut - Not to be confused with the liquor added to gin or vodka  in the states, thus making a martini.  It's twelve o´clock on a Sunday when you drink something and eat berberechos - usually snack food served from a tin like olives, nuts or chips to tide you over until lunch two hours later.

15. culo veo, culo quiero - "Ass I see, ass I want" an expression to use when someone wants something you have.  For example - You hungry? No. Five minutes later you're eating. I want some. Culo veo, culo quiero

16. plantar un pino - "to plant a pine" is another way of saying to do a number two.


17. Por si las moscas - translated literally as "For if the flies," it means just in case.

18. chulo [choo-low]- it means cool, but can also be a person who's too cool for school if you know what I mean.

19. un puente - Literally "a bridge" - it's the day before or after a public holiday depending on if it falls on a Tuesday or Thursday that turns it into a long weekend.

20. bable  - The language people from Asturias in northern Spain speak.

Got any to add?

An Anecdote from Barcelona and a Random Thought about Spanish

So I was hanging out at a friend's flat earlier tonight and he told me about meeting a Finnish girl he fancied yesterday.  He'd been in a bit of a rut with women lately and was excited at the new possibility. He called her. She called back and they agreed to meet at outside a restaurant at a certain time tomorrow. There was no call me after work, or I'll send you a message just to confirm, or let's touch base tomorrow. A time and a date was set and that was the end of communication until they saw each other. It was like back in the day when we were kids and we'd all meet up at that certain spot to get into god knows what. And I thought, How refreshing.

On a completely unrelated note, I find it interesting that the verb for to know and to taste is the same in Spanish (saber) given how important food is here. It's like - you don't really know something until you taste it.

¡Go to the Shit!

In honor of a Spanish bar near Valencia that's come up with an innovative way to help survive the economic crisis by offering free drinks to people who come up with the best insult, here are my favorite Spanish curses.

Me cago en la leche - I shit in the milk.  You can also shit on your whore of a mother (tu puta madre), the communion wafer (la ostia) or if you're particularly angry god (dios).

Vete a la mierda - Go to the shit.  Vete a tomar por culo - Go and take it by ass.  Que te den por culo - They give it to you by ass.  All great ways to get rid of someone.

Coño/joder - Cunt/fuck.  Used as standard punctuation.

Cojones - Bullshit.

Ostia puta - Communion Wafer Whore.

Por mis santos cajones - for the balls of my saints, which means no matter what.  For example, voy a la playa por mis santos cajones.  I'm going to the each no matter what

The thing is: you can't put your own twist on these expressions like we did back in the day with "mother jokes" and say, for example, me cago en los cereales que comes por la mañana. (I shit in your breakfast cereal) or vete a la mierda y bañarte (go to the shit and swim) because if you do, the Spanish will say: Estas como una cabra (You're like a goat) which means you're crazy.

Tips for Learning Spanish from a Bad Student

I'm probably not the best person to offer advice about foreign languages. In high school it was the one class I always skipped and I've got a terrible ear, which explains why after nearly seven years living in Barcelona, my Spanish is good enough to communicate, explain my opinions and curse out drivers who run red lights - it's not nearly as proficient as it probably should be.  With that in mind, I'll tell you what I wish people had told me before coming to Barcelona, so after a few years living of here, people will speak in amazement about your español and not be shocked at how bad it is.

It's Spanish, not English.  I know this sounds obvious, but I can't tell you how many people I've met, who say: "But in English, we'd say..."  Things may sound strange to you and it might not be how we say it, but that's what a foreign language is all about.  Otherwise, it'd be English with Spanish words.   An example would be to call back, which is basically to return to call (volver a llamar).  If you were to translate it literally, it'd be: volver detras, which to a Spaniard sounds like you're calling them "behind," as in look out behind you!  Another example is to be hot, which in Spanish is literally to have heat (tener calor).  If you directly translate I'm hot in Spanish (Estoy caliente) it means you're horny.

Skip the grammar books and buy one just with Spanish verbs.  At least compared to English, Spanish is a real verb intensive.  Like with most Latin based languages, you have to conjugate all persons and the most common verbs tend to be irregular.  Unfortunately, the only way to really learn the verbs is to study them.  Trust me, I've tried not to, but there really isn't any alternative. That said: by mastering the different forms and conjugations of these TEN following verbs, you'll be well on your way to speaking Spanish more fluently than most guiris who live here. These verbs are tener (to have), poner (to put), hacer (to make/do), coger (to get) ir (to go), dar (to give) saber/conocer (to know). venir (to come), volver (to come/get/go back) and ser/estar (to be).

Forget the continuous.  In English, we spend most of our time saying: I'm doing something or she's going somewhere or They're calling about.  In Spanish: it's I do or she goes or they call.  The continuous is rarely used, and you're better off forgetting it even exists for the first few months. Same goes for other words we're so fond of using like actually, really, honestly and I wonder.  The Spanish don't have the need to qualify that - what they are saying is truly what they are saying - if you know what I mean, nor do they tend the announce the fact that they're thinking about something.  An example would be: I wonder if John is actually coming?  or I wonder who's calling. In Spanish it'd be: Will John come? (¿Vendrá Juan?) or Who will call? (¿Quien llamará?)

Be direct, but not rude.  Again our English politeness often has us starting a question with: Would you mind...? or Could you...? or Do you think that you could...?  or May I...? Just cut to the chase in Spanish.  So instead of saying: Would you mind pouring me a beer, please?  Say: Pour me a beer, please  (Ponme una cerveza, por favor).  Also remember this goes the other way around: Spanish will speak to you just as directly, so don't get offended.  It's not personal.

Open you're mouth, and say it loud and proud.  I remember as a child, my parents always stressed the need to be soft spoken and not shout.  If you take this approach in Spain, you'll find yourself waiting for service and ignored.  Of course this doesn't mean to yell, but it does mean to project your voice like you were giving a speech.

Accept the fact that the same letters have different sounds.  The most obvious example is the "Z," which in Spanish is closer to the "TH."  The same pronunciation applies for the "C."  Meanwhile the "V" is the same as the "B" and the double "L" like a cross between a "Y" and a "J" with the "J" like a hacking "H."  Did you get all that?

More than anything, take it easy.  Don't stress and feel like you have to be fluent in two months.  As the saying goes - "Rome wasn't built in one day" and neither is learning a foreign language.  You're going to make mistakes and a fool of yourself, but you probably do in your native tongue - at least I do.  Don't worry, the Spanish like it when people try and will often help.  Sure you'll probably run into the occasional one who is a jerk and if you do ask them to say "How will he hit the wicket?" for a good laugh.

Last but not least, don't be lazy - watch Spanish TV.  Personally, I found dubbed programs the least helpful because it's not how everyday people speak and I was translating too much.  The gossip shows and the news on the other hand were great and gave me an insight into the Spanish culture.  Be prepared to not understand anything at first, but if you stick with it, by the end of month three you'll be surprised.