Why I never liked the Spanish Language

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I'm thinking of learning Spanish - it's about time I did.

I think I had an epiphany last week about why I never liked Spanish (although that's not the reason I want to learn it.)....

Sesame Street.

I always hated when Maria and Luis said something in English and then repeated it in Spanish. I think there was some kind of thing where they were not capable of speaking in English without repeating it in the "superior language" of Spanish. (If they had just talked in Spanish, as a four year old, I probably would have picked up some of it.) But instead I resented that they had to say everything twice - although I might not have minded if they had said, "and this is how you say that same thing in Spanish." Also, it was only the Latino characters that spoke in Spanish. They probably should have had everyone speak Spanish occasionally.

Anyway, that's my revelation of why I have always hated Spanish. (Don't call me a racist - I was only 4.) What do you make of that?

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 21:59 (twenty years ago)

racism?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:03 (twenty years ago)

how do you mean that?

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:03 (twenty years ago)

You were thinking quite complexly(sp?) for a pre-schooler. I could see not liking Spanish b/c of the dorky memories of S.Street. I also figure you don't live in the southwest since every sign, message, recording etc. is always in English and Spanish. you get used to it.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:04 (twenty years ago)

The same thing goes on these days with Dora the Explorer, I think.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:06 (twenty years ago)

I suppose if the dual-language thing was everywhere it might not have bothered me.... I was never bothered by other languages either - just Spanish. I lived in Cleveland - there were a lot of old ladies speaking German, Hungarian, Polish, etc all over the place .... never bothered me. I think the diffence was that the other languages "just were." And Spanish was like this "alternate" language .... ?

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:10 (twenty years ago)

Spanish was like the metric system.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

Except it actually took off.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:18 (twenty years ago)

El Rofflista!

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

(I think that article/gender is a mismatch, isn't it.. I haven't started learning yet..)

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

What's ironic is that there are actually more kilometers in America than in any European country.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:21 (twenty years ago)

Sesame Street is how I started to learn spanish.

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:23 (twenty years ago)

The spanish language bits were designed to be there to help latino kids(and their moms) get more into the show and also facilitate the learning of english, wasn't it?

xpost

ditto.

― kingfish has gene rayburn's mic (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

Spanish actually makes more sense to me than English. "I have 32 years". "de" meaning "from" or "of". Putting "mas" in front of a word instead of adding -er.

I'd like to start learning Russian, only because they don't use definite articles.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:29 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but they do a lot of other stuff to make it more complicated.

Sesame Street these days does a lot of sign language.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:31 (twenty years ago)

Sexing the nouns has gotta go.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:32 (twenty years ago)

sexing the nuns is the way of the future

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:38 (twenty years ago)

The spanish language bits were designed to be there to help latino kids(and their moms) get more into the show and also facilitate the learning of english, wasn't it?

Maybe .. either way, that was kind of my problem with it.. If it was for latino kids, why didn't they just speak Spanish and not English too?

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:49 (twenty years ago)

Sesame Street is how I started to learn spanish.

Indeed, and good thing too. Wish I learned it more and earlier.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:50 (twenty years ago)

I like Spanish for:

affirmative commands in the tu form, and the way they stick the subject and object pronouns on the end. ¡Mándamelo! ¡Dimela! etc

very easy spelling and pronunciation rules

upside down exclamation/question marks ¡¡¡¡¿¿¿

I hate Spanish for:

the subjunctive (NO need)

the double rr (will never be able to do it, however hard I try)

the single r (even this eludes me)

― Cathy (Cathy), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:53 (twenty years ago)

I hate Spanish for:
The various regional flavors which cause people to say: "In my country, you don't THAT in polite company" even though you may said and heard it every day in, say, Spain.

I like Spanish for:
Everything else.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:58 (twenty years ago)

you don't say THAT

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 22:58 (twenty years ago)

Also, I hate my horrible clunky English accent speaking Spanish. It sounds horribly ugly to me. I know that's not Spanish's fault.

― Cathy (Cathy), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:05 (twenty years ago)

If English is part of the Germanic/Scandinavian language family, how come those languages look like gibberish to me and Spanish is almost understandable to a non-speaker (i.e. terrible = terrible, etc.)?

(i took 3 years of spanish in school and can sort of speak it, so maybe that's it.)

― Andres, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:13 (twenty years ago)

I just like that you can look at a word that you've never seen before ("bestarmos") and know how to pronounce it anyway.

(Unlike enough, bough, dough, cough, etc. etc.)

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:16 (twenty years ago)

What gets me in shows like Dora the X-plora or Dragon Tales: they only say the easiest words in Spanish and the rest in English! You'd think they'd say things like hello, goodbye, thanks, good morning in English and the rest in Spanish.

― Abbott (Abbott), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:16 (twenty years ago)

Maybe I should be above it, but it drives me crazy when I hear the other parents reading those Dora books to the kids and mispronouncing those random Spanish words, such as the guy who pronounced aqui "akwee."

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:21 (twenty years ago)

English is only half Germanic. It's half derived from Latin, via French, so that's why you recognise the Spanish words.

― Cathy (Cathy), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:26 (twenty years ago)

http://www.danshort.com/ie/grafx/timeline.gif

― andy --, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:29 (twenty years ago)

What about carribean english?

― andy --, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:30 (twenty years ago)

Is that graph saying that the internet is the end of American English?

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:32 (twenty years ago)

So how do I get to Mornington Crescent again?

― Øystein (Øystein), Thursday, 2 March 2006 00:04 (twenty years ago)

Mándamelo, Mándamelo
Mánda, Mánda, Mándamelo
Mándamelo cosa, Mándamelo
Mánda, Mándamelo, Mándamelo cosa
Mándamelo, Mánda, Mándamelo
Mánda, Mánda, Mándamelo cosa

― Los Pipkins (nickn), Thursday, 2 March 2006 00:06 (twenty years ago)

i could swear i remember people like Gordon saying words in spanish.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 2 March 2006 01:14 (twenty years ago)

Part of what I like about Spanish is its musicality, the metric rhythm of it. Also, little cultural idiosyncrasies like "se me olvido el lapiz" means (literally) "the pencil forgot itself to me" which basically absolves anyone of the sin of forgetting something. That's pretty cool. I love Spanish though, so I think virtually everything about it is cool.

― The Milkmaid (of human kindness) (The Milkmaid), Thursday, 2 March 2006 01:38 (twenty years ago)

Also the way you have to pucker your lips in order to pronounce the vowels correctly. That's awesome.

― The Milkmaid (of human kindness) (The Milkmaid), Thursday, 2 March 2006 01:39 (twenty years ago)

I like Spanish because it´s contundent, straight-forward. It´s great to be angry - Ava Gardner carried all her life saying "Cabron" and the like whenever she lived after her madrid years.

And the drawback: it´s neither cool and supple like English, romantic and warm like Italian, or elegant / debonair like French. It is rough, like something to be spoken at the market but not at a 5 star hotel cocktail bar with your literati pals

― olenska (olenska), Thursday, 2 March 2006 10:59 (twenty years ago)

Classic for its word for 'fridge' alone: ¡frigorífico!

― scotstvo (scotstvo), Thursday, 2 March 2006 11:22 (twenty years ago)

Why does Spain have the lowest birthrate in Europe?

Sorry, that's kind of unrelated.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 2 March 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Spanish always reminds me of late night partying, as you'll always find a Spanish person in a bar at 5 in the morning.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Thursday, 2 March 2006 11:30 (twenty years ago)

I like nevera much better. Though a friend of mine just says "frigo". This is very Madrid-like, long words are not welcome here

― olenska (olenska), Thursday, 2 March 2006 12:54 (twenty years ago)

I wish I could speak spanish

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 2 March 2006 12:56 (twenty years ago)

English is only half Germanic. It's half derived from Latin, via French, so that's why you recognise the Spanish words

But try speaking (comprehensible) English without the Germanic bits

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:45 (twenty years ago)

Jesus wept.

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:48 (twenty years ago)

Hey, you're right!

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:50 (twenty years ago)

If you'd said:

Jesus lamented

I'd have been wrong tho

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:52 (twenty years ago)

I can speak bits of Spanish but I sort of gave up in Barcelona as there were too many gaps and mispronunciations. They understood my English far better.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:53 (twenty years ago)

well perhaps they were speaking Catalan after all

― olenska (olenska), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:55 (twenty years ago)

Haha, I knew a guy in Barcelona who had a story about some woman, maybe she was a model, who was going on about a lot of stuff including how she spoke Spanish blah blah blah, and then they sat down in a restaurant and were handed one of those Catalan-on-the-left Castellano-on-the-right menus which she looked at it for a before saying "I speak it, but I don't remember which one I speak!"

olenska, you were on the money upthread except
contundent
I don't know what this word means.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:34 (twenty years ago)

Spanish always reminds me of late night partying, as you'll always find a Spanish person in a bar at 5 in the morning. Yeah, the cliche is true: You see them eating dinner at eleven/midnight and then after that they meet up at some bar and then they arrive at the club at 3AM.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:37 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps "powerful" or "forceful"? Possibly my brain couldn´t match my impression with the right word and just made up one out of French/Spanish/Catalan

― olenska (olenska), Thursday, 2 March 2006 16:15 (twenty years ago)

Ha, I googled it and only seemed get hits in Catlan. Are you a Catalan living in Madrid?

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Thursday, 2 March 2006 16:26 (twenty years ago)

CatAlan

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Thursday, 2 March 2006 16:57 (twenty years ago)

I love that fish (n) is "pescado" which literally means "fished".

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 3 March 2006 01:59 (twenty years ago)

The PBS station out here used to run Villa Alegre right after Sesame Street so I got a healthy dose of Spanish at an early age. I can still read it, but my speaking has atrophied.

― The Equator Lounge (Chris Barrus), Friday, 3 March 2006 06:43 (twenty years ago)

PARA TODOS HATERZ DE ESPAÑOL

http://youtube.com/watch?v=le7EhDIO3kw

― Da Na Not! (donut), Friday, 3 March 2006 08:24 (twenty years ago)

taht is reminiscent of the performance in Jabba's Palace in Return of teh jedi "Lapti Nek"

I like how when she does a split they close up on many men standing and looking to get a better view

― Mr Jones (Mr Jones), Friday, 3 March 2006 08:33 (twenty years ago)

I *love* the Spanish langwich, me. I like the directness. None off this: "Would one be awfully kind and please open the door, if it is not too much trouble." Just: "Open the door, please." And it's not rude!

― Zoe Espera (Espera), Friday, 3 March 2006 11:15 (twenty years ago)

my advice to anyone who dislikes the Spanish language is to watch Zoolander dubbed in Spanish.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Friday, 3 March 2006 11:20 (twenty years ago)

Or "ET" in Spanish! Classic. I learned a lot of my English through watching "Sesame Street" .

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Friday, 3 March 2006 12:57 (twenty years ago)

I would be shocked, nay SHOCKED, if anyone who had ever seen Villa Alegre didn't get the theme song stuck in his head at least once a week.

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Friday, 3 March 2006 13:19 (twenty years ago)

It's in my head now. I never liked that show when I was a kid, though, except for the theme song.

― Nemo (JND), Friday, 3 March 2006 14:04 (twenty years ago)

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