Demoralizing myths

  I guess that anyone who has ever studied a language has heard, at least once, of the myths relating to the acquisition of a certain language. I have.

We are all well aware that language acquisition entails difficulties. But normally, the “demoralizing myths”  have nothing to do with the actual challenges a language may arise.

That's why I have thought of a list of the myths I have heard regarding this matter:

English: "English can be learnt just by watching movies" (actually, those who have said that to me can't even utter those words)

Portuguese: "If you can speak Spanish, then you can speak Portuguese" (believe me, you can't)

French: "You should study it at the same time you study Spanish, then it's so easy to learn it" (Spanish is my mother tongue and still French isn't getting any easier!)

Catalan: "It's nothing but an easy dialect... take a word in Spanish and just take off its last two letters"

Italian: "I come from an Italian family, then I can speak Italian" (My nonna was Italian and knowing the word nonna doesn't mean I can speak Italian, capisci?)

Spanish: Spanish is my mother tongue, so I honestly don't know what people say about it

For all languages' sake, please do not believe in these myths... they are wrong!

It's about time

  Asking the time is one of the easiest things that can be done without words: it's only necessary to raise the left arm a little bit, point at one's wrist with the right forefinger, and give a I-am-at-a-loss face. The answer could easily be performed with the same means: just by showing the watch or even signalling the sun (this only works for the most experienced ones), the whole interaction of asking and giving the time can be completed.
  However, the time is usually given using words and it's then when we have to be competent enough both to understand others and to make others understand us. Everyone knows that when studying a language the time is an easy-to-learn recurrent topic, but there are occasions in which we may get confused. In English we say “It's half past two” for 2:30 when we are asked “What time is it?.” We can see that there is concordance between the question and the answer, i.e. we use the pronoun “it” and the verb “is” in both of the instances. So far so good. But what happens in other languages? In Spanish sometimes there isn't this kind of concordance. For instance, for the question “¿Qué hora es?” (“es” being singular) we may answer “Son las dos y media” for 2.30 (note that the written format is different from that of English). Then “es” and “son” are singular and plural respectively. This is beacause the concordance is done only within each sentence.
  In Portuguese, French and other languages of latin origin the same happens. We say “Que horas são?” (but we don´t say “Que hora é?”) and “Quel huere est-il?” when we want to know the time. The answers follow more or less the same pattern as in Spanish, but in French it's mandatory to use the word “heures” in the answer but it's almost inadvisable to use “minutes” when referring to the minutes. For instance, right now “il est 8 heures 15” and that's it.
  Although giving the time may seem a simple task, it gets complicated when we are at a hurry and someone asks us the time in the middle of the street... in a few times I've even given the wrong time in my own language! Well, perhaps it's safer to point at the sun and let the other person guess the time of the day.

Note: Beware those who travel to Catalunya since there time is handled a little bit different from the rest of the world. For our surprise Catalans say, for instance, “Es un quart de dues” when it´s 1:15 (i.e. a quarter past one) or “Son tres quarts de set” when it's 6:45 (i.e. a quarter to seven). It´s quite complicated to understand it and even more to learn it, so you should stick to the whole wrist-pointing thing if you want to know the time

Cuando el río suena…

…agua lleva. Modismos, expresiones idiomáticas, proverbios, refranes… idioms, idiotismes, ditos populares. Cada idioma tiene los suyos y muchos son parecidos desde el punto de vista sintáctico hasta el punto de vista semántico.
  Sucede que en cualquier sitio vamos a escuchar refranes propios del lugar y los típicos de cada idioma en particular, con algunas variaciones según el dialecto (o más específicamente el geolecto) de turno. Si investigamos un poco, hay muchos modismos que tienen su equivalencia en otros idiomas porque son, digamos, universales. ¿Quién no cree en el gran valor que tiene el tiempo? Yo creo que el tiempo es muy valioso, así que para mí el tiempo es oro… para los angloparlantes el tiempo es dinero, que es lo que te dan si vendés el oro, ¿no? Muy bien, una equivalencia para este refrán.
  Ahora, imagínense que están hablando con un angloparlante y entre bla, bla, bla te dice: “el tiempo es rubí” (bueno, o alguna piedra preciosa que se le pase por la cabeza)… la primera reacción sería la risa pero la segunda sería el intento de explicar que en realidad se dice oro en lugar de rubí. La razón por la que esto puede ocurrir es que existen distintos niveles de dificultad en lo que respecta a los refranes y el de mi ejemplo es un tanto transparente. Supongamos que entre charla que te charla, luego de esta situación jocosa, decimos: “Mmm, there´s a cat that is hidden”. ¿Qué sucedería? Me lo tendría que contestar alguien cuya lengua materna sea el inglés, pero no creo que uno de los propósitos del idioma, que es que haya comprensión entre un orador y un receptor (es algo más complicado que esto), se cumpla… no habría risas sino caras de confusión. La posible respuesta sería: “Where? Help me find it!”; o un simple “What do I care?”. “Hay gato encerrado” y “There´s a skeleton in the cupboard” no tienen mucho que ver, ¿verdad? Bueno, se podría decir que se usan en situaciones similares, por lo que tenemos un posible par de equivalencias. Y así ocurre con muchísimos más refranes (son fáciles de buscar) que describen situaciones comunes entre distintas sociedades o entre distintas comunidades lingüísticas.
 Como dije antes, también están los más complicados, esos que son difíciles de entender por alguien no nativo con un “background knowledge” diferente. Hay un “dito popular” del portugués bastante popular que se refiere a una persona tacaña que es “mão-de-vaca”. ¿Mano de vaca? ¡Pero si la vaca no tiene manos ni le hace falta nada más que pasto!... simplemente son expresiones que a veces no responden a la lógica (aunque quizá la del ejemplo tenga una y todavía no se la haya encontrado). También se puede escuchar “pão duro” para describir a alguien avaricioso.
  Hasta ahora mencioné algunas frases bastante comunes que quizá necesiten explicación por parte de un nativo pero que son fáciles de trasladar a nuestra propia sociedad ya que describen situaciones comunes. Hay otras dos que aprendí hace mucho que dicen: “A friend in need is a friend indeed” y “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Suenan bien, ¿no? Claro, por eso ni intenten traducirlas porque quedarían mal... es que manzana rimaría con semana y una manzana a la semana es muy poca fruta. Hay otra expresión propia del francés que dicen que caracteriza la vida urbana de los parisinos: “Métro, boulot, dodo”. La versión en español rioplatense sería “subte, laburo, noni” (traducción libre porque no soy de Buenos Aires y además me subí al subte dos veces en mi vida). Ahora bien, esta expresión, que dudo que exista en otros idiomas, solo la pueden decir los que vivan en las metrópolis (en realidad, en ciudades con transporte subterráneo y con una alta tasa de empleo). Me imagino que en Londres podrían decir “Tube, work, cot”, o algo así, para describir la rutina diaria de ir al trabajo y volver a casa a dormir (vale la pena mencionar el verbo “to commute” que es de uso bastante común para describir esta misma rutina).
  Bueno, como conclusión se puede decir que antes de usar un modismo hay que saber en qué lugar estamos, no vaya a ser que queramos decir gato y digamos esqueleto... y además que el tiempo no es oro porque sino alguien ya lo hubiera patentado

Mealtime

  It happens that when we travel abroad jetlag ain´t the only thing that disorients us. There are a bunch of other factors that we, as travellers (and hence as passers-by), are affected by, let alone the currency change.
  One of these factors has to do with meals: each language has its own mealtime schedule and its own way of referring to meals, even though it´s obvious that there are equivalents. Take for instance the Spanish word “desayunar”, which is quite clear and eloquent if we break it down. “Desayunar” means “to have breakfast” in English (“breakfast” is clear too); note that, just like what happens to many other cases in English, we have to use the verb “to have” followed by a noun to express the action of eating after a night´s sleep (preferably before 10 a.m., please). Take what happens in Portuguese: we have the noun “desjejum” (as far as I know, this noun is mainly used in Portugal as in Brazil I´ve always heard “café da manhã”) but we have no derivation when we want to utter the action; instead, we have the construction “tomar o café da manhã”, as if breakfast consisted only of coffee (nothing further from the truth since Brazilian breakfast is quite a flavorsome experience). French is somehow funny (look this word up in the dictionary, it has several meanings) when it comes to naming the first meal of the day; the construction is alike (V + NPh) those mentioned earlier: “prendre le petit-déjeuner” (it can be used the verb “déjeuner” though). The funny part is “le petit-déjeuner”, which literally means “the little breakfast/lunch” (bear in mind that according to the number of croissants you have it may not be so little). After breakfast we have lunch, naturally… or not so naturally.
  There is this relatively new word (at least for me) “brunch”, a portmanteau term made up of “breakfast” + “lunch”. In Argentina, where I´m from, there isn´t an equivalent at all, although I reckon this very same word (untranslated) is used in snobbish social meetings. When I first came to Spain I was told of the Spanish “almuerzo”, which occurs between breakfast and lunch and differs from my almuerzo since for me it means “lunch”… voilà, I´ve found an equivalent for “brunch”! In Catalunya the term “esmorzar” doesn´t mean “to have lunch” but “to have breakfast”, then it´s kinda tricky for its similarity with the Spanish term “almorzar”. Gee, talking about meals made me realize it´s almost noon and I haven´t had my newly beloved “almuerzo” before almorzar, so I leave you with these words; hope they trigger some thoughts… I gotta flee, see you!