To prepare for our international trips, B and I try to acquire some of the basics of the languages for the countries that we'll visit. I was somewhat prepared for France because I took a year of French in high school, and I practiced my French every night in the shower using a French CD.
Before we went to Italy, we got an Italian-language CD to which we occasionally listened in the car (it put us to sleep--a dangerous side effect of a car activity--so our Italian was limited to greetings and useless pronouncements, such as "che una maquina!"). We have followed a similar path to prepare for Germany, though I'm hoping that B's German training during college will carry us through at least some of our interactions.
For our Spain trip, I thought--finally! A country where I can practice my Spanish skills and maybe even hold an entire conversation in Spanish. Perhaps that hope is too great, as I can speak but not understand Spanish (it throws everyone off because my accent is just good enough to make people think that I can keep up--they're always disappointed by my deer-in-the-headlights look whenever they respond with anything more than a few words). Nevertheless, I am better prepared for Spain than any other country that we've visited in Europe.
Or so I thought. As I was reading my Spain guide book, I learned that Barcelona, where we'll spend more than half our time, is actually part of Catalonia (the part that wants to secede from Spain), and its official language is Catalon. Catalon, while it has similarities to Spanish, is actually much closer to Italian. And Catalonians get angry--angry!--when people speak Spanish to them.
I'm having a "so much for all of those Spanish classes" moment (why did I never learn any Catalonian???), but I'm just going to have to do my best to communicate without offending anyone. If my woeful attempts at Spanish are met with sneers, I can always fall back upon my Ignorant American routine--I can ask if someone speaks English in many languages.
No comments:
Post a Comment