One of the true delights in not speaking a foreign language is that it allows for humorous delight in the attempts that you make in carrying on a conversation where the level of language you need to be understood is not available to you. A case in point is a conversation that I had with Carmen today in which I was trying to explain some of the history of Cardiff (in Spanish) and the importance that the city had in the export of coal. [I have just tried to use the internet to check what I am going to say next, but have been unable to find any evidence yet so you will have to take the following on trust.] I seem to remember that the first cheque for a million pounds was signed in Cardiff and was connected with the vast wealth that was being made in the city in the late years of the nineteenth century and the first few years of the twentieth when Cardiff and Barry together were the greatest coal exporting ports in the world.
In this lengthy discussion which turned into a serious disquisition about the growth of Welsh industrial power in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the increase in immigration to fuel the employee needs of heavy industry; the decline of the Welsh language and the rise of King Coal, I found myself becoming more and more hysterical trying to find the Spanish words!
For an English teacher it is almost a perfect example of frustration when you find yourself struggling for the words in a foreign language to express yourself when you know perfectly well that you would have no problem at all as long as you were able to use your own tongue.
I was reminded of my optician who explained that my eyes had deteriorated to the extent that I was both long sighted and short sighted and I would have to start having bi focal assistance. As a confirmed contact lens wearer I rejected the idea of wearing glasses and so tried various forms of bifocal contact lenses: they were all failures. Eventually the optician said that he would give me one lens which I should use for reading and the lens in the other eye for distance work. In other words, each eye would have to do a different job and my brain would have to adapt to the different focal information. Over the next few months I trained myself to see different things with different eyes. It was only a partial success, but at least it meant that I didn’t have to wear glasses.
My attempts at Spanish are similar experiences in that I have had limited resources with which to attempt reasonable communication. If your foreign language skills are anything like mine then you will constantly find yourself in linguistic situations which are beyond your ability. You can actually feel new neuron pathways being formed as you frantically struggle to rearrange the limited Spanish vocabulary you have at your command to create new conversations!
One conversation with a monoglot Turk on a beach in Cinarcik is seared on my memory. After acquiring a few words in the local language my natural confidence, born of life long chattering in English encourages me to embark on such topics for foreign conversations as the Byzantine dispute on the dual nature of Christ (this example, I might add is not plucked from the imagination but from bizarre experience!)
After a simple start concerning names and domicile with this innocent Turk it escalated rapidly into a lecture about how to play squash and the differences between Islam and Anglicanism. This conversation is seared on my memory; not only because of the difficulty with individual words, but also with the realization that, the more I explained the intricacies of squash and Anglicanism, the less was I convinced about the sense of each, and eventually about their respective existence! I wonder if Kerem remembers our first conversation. I like to think that it was this bewildering logorrhoea that started his determination to master English – and look at how he speaks today!
My conversation with Carmen was on a level with my great conversations of the past; where the listener has to do a bloody sight more work than the talker! The only thing that kept her going was my unintended confusion in my use of words when talking about coal (‘carbon’ in Spanish). I was trying to say that Cardiff was the greatest coal exporting port in the world but, instead of using the word ‘carbon’ I used the word ‘cabron’. I will leave the word untranslated, but it did lead to hysterical laughter on both our parts.
Who knows what fortuitous infelicitous utterances I may commit tomorrow?
In this lengthy discussion which turned into a serious disquisition about the growth of Welsh industrial power in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the increase in immigration to fuel the employee needs of heavy industry; the decline of the Welsh language and the rise of King Coal, I found myself becoming more and more hysterical trying to find the Spanish words!
For an English teacher it is almost a perfect example of frustration when you find yourself struggling for the words in a foreign language to express yourself when you know perfectly well that you would have no problem at all as long as you were able to use your own tongue.
I was reminded of my optician who explained that my eyes had deteriorated to the extent that I was both long sighted and short sighted and I would have to start having bi focal assistance. As a confirmed contact lens wearer I rejected the idea of wearing glasses and so tried various forms of bifocal contact lenses: they were all failures. Eventually the optician said that he would give me one lens which I should use for reading and the lens in the other eye for distance work. In other words, each eye would have to do a different job and my brain would have to adapt to the different focal information. Over the next few months I trained myself to see different things with different eyes. It was only a partial success, but at least it meant that I didn’t have to wear glasses.
My attempts at Spanish are similar experiences in that I have had limited resources with which to attempt reasonable communication. If your foreign language skills are anything like mine then you will constantly find yourself in linguistic situations which are beyond your ability. You can actually feel new neuron pathways being formed as you frantically struggle to rearrange the limited Spanish vocabulary you have at your command to create new conversations!
One conversation with a monoglot Turk on a beach in Cinarcik is seared on my memory. After acquiring a few words in the local language my natural confidence, born of life long chattering in English encourages me to embark on such topics for foreign conversations as the Byzantine dispute on the dual nature of Christ (this example, I might add is not plucked from the imagination but from bizarre experience!)
After a simple start concerning names and domicile with this innocent Turk it escalated rapidly into a lecture about how to play squash and the differences between Islam and Anglicanism. This conversation is seared on my memory; not only because of the difficulty with individual words, but also with the realization that, the more I explained the intricacies of squash and Anglicanism, the less was I convinced about the sense of each, and eventually about their respective existence! I wonder if Kerem remembers our first conversation. I like to think that it was this bewildering logorrhoea that started his determination to master English – and look at how he speaks today!My conversation with Carmen was on a level with my great conversations of the past; where the listener has to do a bloody sight more work than the talker! The only thing that kept her going was my unintended confusion in my use of words when talking about coal (‘carbon’ in Spanish). I was trying to say that Cardiff was the greatest coal exporting port in the world but, instead of using the word ‘carbon’ I used the word ‘cabron’. I will leave the word untranslated, but it did lead to hysterical laughter on both our parts.
Who knows what fortuitous infelicitous utterances I may commit tomorrow?
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