So you’ve made the move or are thinking about making the move. Or perhaps you just love coming on holiday to Spain. Maybe you’ve got yourself a small Spanish-English language book from your nearest bookshop and try to memorize and pronounce a few sentences correctly even though you probably know that being able to ask for something in Spanish is pretty much useless if you won’t understand the answer. You went to Spanish classes? Good for you. You didn’t because you were planning to go to an expat dominated area of Spain? As far as personal opinions go I find it hard to say ‘good for you too’ but that is presumptuous as I know there is a perfectly well functioning ‘sub-society’ if I may call it that, where you can offer your services to people who speak your language, in the Spanish sun. But I have to admit that I find it rather funny to watch those reality TV shows where people start a new life in another country and cannot string a sentence together, if any words at all. And to hear an English lady ask for a chicken in the Spanish local butchers, and just repeating the word in a louder and more angrily tone when the butchers was looking at her as if she came from another planet was slightly insulting but also hilarious. And the Dutch lady who cut a piece of her farmer’s cheese for the Spanish customer telling her it is ‘mucho lekker’ (mucho delicious) and continued the conversation with Dutch words with a Spanish accent was certainly amusing. Talking about accents. I happen to have moved to Andalusia.
Now those of you who come here well prepared with a good few years of Spanish language classes behind you will get a bit of a shock as in Andalusia they seem to speak a different language. They swallow the last letters of most words and the deeper you get into the country side the more they seem to shorten their words. So don’t be surprised to hear ‘maome’ instead of ‘mas o menos’, which means ‘more or less’. It feels as if you have to go back to school again, but don’t worry, after a few years of practice you get used to the word-swallowing and might find yourself leaving out a few of the last letters of some Spanish words during a conversation with a local shop keeper. That’s when you know you are starting to blend in. Language is a funny thing. I personally love languages, which is a bit of a giveaway as I speak … ’drum ruffle’ five languages. This doesn’t mean that I never make mistakes, in fact after almost 13 years in Spain I still throw in the odd Italian word and I also cannot seem to master the ‘take and bring’ (‘llevar and traer’). More importantly I still have to think carefully when I tell people that I am feeling warm, which is a much used comment when you live here. It works perfectly well if you ask for a coffee and add ‘muy caliente’ to make sure that it doesn’t arrive luke-warm which can be the case, especially during summer time, when many Spanish like to dump a few ice cubes in their coffee, but when I told some people that I was feeling ‘muy caliente’ it was received with a lot of amusement. This suggested that I was ‘hot’ and rather in the mood. It is also a challenge, when I write in Spanish on my mobile phone, to avoid the word ‘year’ as my adapted English keyboard does not have the ñ. Year is ‘año’ but ‘ano’ has a very different meaning. You can look that up in an online dictionary. Living in a foreign country may come with language barriers, but nothing that cannot be solved with a good laugh and a smile. Although some Spanish do make an effort to speak English this comes with a challenge for them too. Especially for
Andalusian born Spanish as they tend to swallow the end of their English as well which can make it difficult to understand them. Singing in English can be a challenge for some Spanish singers as well as I found out recently during a concert. Although the voice of the singer guitarist was great, his music fantastic as he enthusiastically sang with a strong American accent, trying to cheer up the crowds, his English was so bad that I could not make any sense of it and judging by the laughter of a group of English people in the audience I was not the only one. It reminded me of when I was young and sang along with the Beatles “obladi oblada la gozon yeah la la la la la gozon” years before I learned English in school. Does all this matter? I guess not. At the end of the day the most important thing is living side by side peacefully and that is exactly what I myself and many expats do. And just in case you are wondering? You are right, I am not a native English speaker, I am Dutch and my English isn’t perfect but I hope you enjoy my Spanish adventures nevertheless! Welcome to Spain!
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