Here is a fun video about how English sounds to non-English speakers.
Here in Cádiz, the locals have a good time making fun of how the “guiris” (a half-endearing, half-derogatory term for foreign people) sound when they talk. It is not rare to hear “Gwatch E Nay” when a blue-eyed, blond-haired person walks past a group of construction workers, mimicking the sound of “what’s your name” that they have heard over and over. Or to even refer to someone or something foreign as a “Gawtch E Nay”. My husband (who is fluent in English, with a slight British accent, grrr), does an amazing non-English English imitation with lots of -nation, -ization, schwe-, and-then-I-was-like- (influence from his stays with my family in Southern California?), hey-, and shwa-.
Here is another video from the Morancos, two comedian brothers from Sevilla, imitating how American’s speak (and dress, and analyze insects) with their George Evan character and a lice bug, in a skit called Doméstical Geografic: el Piojo.
With temperatures still soaring at mid-August highs, I feel this post is quite appropriate. When I first moved here to Cádiz, in the year 2001, I had the typical exchange-student-local-foreign-boy romance (sorry Cariño, pero lo tengo que contar). He was oh-so-Spanish, his mother ironed his underpants (not that I really know about this from personal first-person experience, but he told me…and I don’t think he would lie). This boy taught me Spanish, in all its bad-barrio versions, and showed me tenderly through so many painful processes of acquiring a new language and adapting to a new culture. He was too handsome, too romantic, and…well, he was a rock star. Really. Seriously.
So, let’s get to the point. Bathing suits in Spain. When this boy wasn’t too busy rocking out or teaching me Spanish, he had time to meet me one day at the beach, early on in our relationship. I had already been to the beach several times with my fellow exchange students from the University of Washington (think North Face polar fleeces, Asics running shoes as daily footwear, big techy backpacks, granola for snacks, pale skin and healthy, American values). During these previous visits to the amazingly beautiful beaches of Cádiz, my classmates and I had spent good amounts of time strengthening our abdominal muscles as we laughed pretty darn hard about Spanish men in black speedo-like bathing suits. We were not ready for this in our 20-year-old Pacific Northwest minds. We wore baggy garments (even the girls) and bathing suits were large and long for males. The small black underwear-like items were astonishing to us, along with the hair, skin and body type that became visible from lack of coverage.
Today I ran along these same beaches to my routine Tuesday Pilates class at 4 pm and I saw many a man sporting black speedos and I blinked not an eye at said sighting. It doesn’t frighten, surprise or catch me off guard anymore. 8 years is enough to get used to these kinds of foreign nuances. However, as I trotted along the wet sand, I did remember how truly, deeply and darkly frightened I was on that first beach encounter with my rock star Spanish boy…was he going to appear in a black speedo? and what would he look like in it? Would it be small and tight and shiny (albeit ironed, of course!)? Would it have some wild print on it? Leopard skin or the Spanish flag? What would I do? How would I react? How would my classmates react? Would I ever live this down? Would our budding relationship survive such a moment? Would I ever be attracted to him again if he did show up in such clothing? Rock stars, even if Spanish, cannot wear black speedos, right? I felt ridiculous and so shallow, but I was so, so, so scared. It was a make or break moment.
He showed up in trunks. We dated for another year.
I can’t help but include this skit of Will Ferrell from SNL…it’s USA day at the office! Everyone has to wear a small patriotic item! This is similar to what I was fearing…
Bear with me here. When you have a baby, whether you like it or not, nursery rhymes and lullabies become a regular part of your daily life. Flies in buttermilk and old women that perhaps might die aside, my task of singing lullabies and nursery rhymes to my daughter has been complicated by adding another language/culture/country to the repertoire. Some of the time I get by with singing songs by Queen or the Red Hot Chili Peppers in funny tones, but sometimes, when the going gets tough, I have to break out the infantile chants of strange fairy tales and long-forgotten customs. And when the going gets really tough (read three pajama changes in one night, leaving the house without a bottle/baby food at feeding time, vaccination-induced fever, etc.), I have to break out the local, Spanish-language tunes…(somehow the Spanish songs have a superior calming effect than the English-language ones…the reason for this is up for grabs? Anyone?)
So I stumble and stutter through them. I’ve done internet searches, I’ve paid close attention to my Suegra (Mother-in-law), my nanny, and the “older” women on the street. I get the tunes, I mix the lyrics, and I throw in some quirky improvisations. And through my research, I am baffled by one song in particular. The CincoLobitos. Five little wolves. Oh yes, five of them. Little, fuzzy wolves with pointy snouts and beady eyes. This song goes with a hand gesture–opening up the five fingers of one hand and moving the wrist as if screwing in a light bulb. The hand gesture is always the same. The lyrics, however, differ greatly from one Spanish person to the next. Here are some of the variations I’ve captured:
Cinco lobitos detras de la loba, cinco lobitos debajo de la cola. (Translation: Five little wolves behind the mama wolf, five little wolves, underneath her tail). Weird. No comment.
Cinco lobitos detras de la loba, cinco lobitos debajo de la alcoba. (Translation: Five little wolves behind the mama wolf, five little wolves under the bedchamber). I consider myself VERY fluent in Spanish. I even know obsolete terms from past colloquial times including economato and manolete. I know the lyrics to the National Anthem (hehe, little private joke with Spanish people – let’s see who catches this), entire Camilo Sexto songs, random engineering terms, surgical instruments, local sayings, all swear words, the names of all the players of the Spanish soccer team and some aeronautical emergency landing gear vocabulary. I am a professional translator, don’t front. I dream in Spanish, and when I stub my toe, I swear in Spanish. When I have road rage, oh yes, its in Spanish. And….I had to look the word alcoba up. Bedchamber. Hm. This doesn’t make sense.
Cinco lobitos detras de la loba, cinco lobitos usando la escoba. (Translation: Five little wolves behind the mama wolf, five little wolves using the broom). Child labor laws? These don’t apply to baby animals? After slavery was abolished, maybe baby wolves were used to complete housework?
Cinco lobitos detras de la loba, cinco lobitos conduciendo un eskoda. (Translation: Five little wolves behind the mama wolf, five little wolves driving a Skoda). Spaniards pronounce any word starting with S as ES, hence Skoda is Eskoda and rhymes with loba. Škoda is actually a Czech car brand…you haven’t heard of them? That answers your questions. Nothing remarkable.
And then there’s Shakira with her she-wolf song (about a she-wolf coming out of a closet and wanting a domesticated he-wolf)….with some very strange choreography and wardrobe action going on…maybe some kind of modern mating call that I don’t understand because I’m already married?
And another version that I think I understand even better about an old woman in a cage:
And finally, sometimes it sounds like:
Cinco globitos detras de la globa, cinco globitos debajo de la alfombra. (Translation: Five little balloons behind the she-balloon, five little balloons underneath the rug).
Note: I will always remember this post as the ink from those five little wolf faces drawn on my fingers has now stained my q, w, a, shift, r and t keys on my keyboard. Collateral damage.
I love to laugh. I feel like here on planet earth we need more laughing, more good humor. However, and probably due to my love of laughing, I am known to make awkward jokes to random, frequently unknown people. This afternoon, the poor victim was a man who lives in my apartment building. He’s a nice man, but he seems extremely shy. I coincided with him while waiting for the elevator to take us to our respective floors. He was carrying a very, and I mean VERY large black, canvas bag (he is a soccer/football/futbol coach for a third division team). I chuckled and said “ha, lugging the ol’ cadaver around, are you?” (in Spanish: “cargando con el cadavar, no?”). He didn’t laugh. He didn’t chuckle. He didn’t really say anything at all. And the worst part wasn’t his lack of empathy towards my awkward comment, but the fact that we had to climb into a tiny Spanish-size elevator (big enough for 1.5 Americans) and rise 7 floors together. It seemed an eternity. What will I say to him next time I see him?
Do you also make awkward comments or jokes? Have you lived similar, embarrassing experiences? Do you live and elevator-dependent life? Please share!
