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Musical Vindication
Mar. 6th, 2012 04:47 amBwahahaha, so last night/early this morning I found the following song, and I think it sums up like 75% of the frustration that I have with learning Spanish. Everywhere you go, any word you know probably means something different from the definition you learned for it, and therefore your vocabulary always carries the potential of getting you into trouble. The best part is that these guys are from Colombia...I feel so vindicated that people who actually speak Spanish do realize that this is a huge problem for foreigners, haha. This video is going to potentially be long and tedious for people who don't know or care about Spanish, but if you do like Spanish, I highly suggest you watch it!
My transcription and translation are below. The [bracketed] parts in the actual transcription are parts I couldn't get on my own, or parts that I changed/refined after looking up lyrics. In the translation, the brackets indicate the English meaning of the previous word (a lot of the jokes depend heavily on keeping the Spanish word there).
I didn't get everything, of course, but I was really pleased with how much I *was* able to understand, given how they put on a bunch of weird accents and go pretty fast. @_@/ Anyway, my translation doesn't do the song justice, but I don't think *English* does it justice being it's about the craziness of Spanish. Still, if you like languages, wordplay, and language problems, you might find the translation funny too, idk.
( Spanish )
( English )
This is also part of the problem of trying to learn Spanish and living in the US, too. One of the lines is "si lo aprendes [el español], no te muevas de region"-- "If you learn [Spanish], don't move to another region", because people will use words completely differently there. But in the US, there are tons of Spanish speakers from everywhere! How do you "not change regions"? I guess you just have to learn Spanish from one person and never talk to anyone else. Or something similarly silly, lol.
Also also self-serving change of topic, but...! Tonight Andres and I went out to a fancy Mexican restaurant where I think the waiters are instructed to speak to you with Spanish thrown in, even if you obviously can't speak it. (They always do this--maybe it's in order to seem authentic or exotic? idk) The Spanish addressed towards me always encourages me to gather all my courages and actually respond in Spanish, and today I just went for it and the waiter seemed surprised, but happy. When he brought us our check at the end, he asked me where I'd learned Spanish and that "lo tenía muy bien pronunciado". It made my night!!!! And possibly my week/month ^^; I normally notice all the ways in which I fail at speaking (in any language, including English) or how much I suck at, well, everything, so getting a compliment like that about my *pronunciation in Spanish* of all things from a random stranger was, well, pretty great. :) I feel like little moments like tonight are what make all sorts of struggling and anxiety and self-doubt suddenly worthwhile. <3 I'll never give up on Spanish, ever. In spite of all the difficulties and frustrations it's something I find worth fighting for.
My transcription and translation are below. The [bracketed] parts in the actual transcription are parts I couldn't get on my own, or parts that I changed/refined after looking up lyrics. In the translation, the brackets indicate the English meaning of the previous word (a lot of the jokes depend heavily on keeping the Spanish word there).
I didn't get everything, of course, but I was really pleased with how much I *was* able to understand, given how they put on a bunch of weird accents and go pretty fast. @_@/ Anyway, my translation doesn't do the song justice, but I don't think *English* does it justice being it's about the craziness of Spanish. Still, if you like languages, wordplay, and language problems, you might find the translation funny too, idk.
( Spanish )
( English )
This is also part of the problem of trying to learn Spanish and living in the US, too. One of the lines is "si lo aprendes [el español], no te muevas de region"-- "If you learn [Spanish], don't move to another region", because people will use words completely differently there. But in the US, there are tons of Spanish speakers from everywhere! How do you "not change regions"? I guess you just have to learn Spanish from one person and never talk to anyone else. Or something similarly silly, lol.
Also also self-serving change of topic, but...! Tonight Andres and I went out to a fancy Mexican restaurant where I think the waiters are instructed to speak to you with Spanish thrown in, even if you obviously can't speak it. (They always do this--maybe it's in order to seem authentic or exotic? idk) The Spanish addressed towards me always encourages me to gather all my courages and actually respond in Spanish, and today I just went for it and the waiter seemed surprised, but happy. When he brought us our check at the end, he asked me where I'd learned Spanish and that "lo tenía muy bien pronunciado". It made my night!!!! And possibly my week/month ^^; I normally notice all the ways in which I fail at speaking (in any language, including English) or how much I suck at, well, everything, so getting a compliment like that about my *pronunciation in Spanish* of all things from a random stranger was, well, pretty great. :) I feel like little moments like tonight are what make all sorts of struggling and anxiety and self-doubt suddenly worthwhile. <3 I'll never give up on Spanish, ever. In spite of all the difficulties and frustrations it's something I find worth fighting for.
