Precerpt from My 20th Language: L3 Spanish - Spaoin
Spain
(after Jordan – Arabic words – the Moors); I knew a lot more Spanish words after living in Jordan.
Spain, to me, was a reward for learning Spanish though I was sent there for work and had a native speaker in our group, so it did not matter whether I could speak Spanish for the business part of the trip. Yes, of course, it did help being able to understand and communicate without interpretation.
The language was not the Spanish (Spanglish) of Salinas, and certainly one could not throw in some English words and expect comprehension—although Arabic words might have done the trick. Having recently lived and worked in Jordan, I was surprised at how many of the Spanish words had arisen from the influence of Arabic, through the Moors, course.
The hotel I stayed in was located across from a beautiful Catholic church that had a Mass every evening. I attended—every evening. My San Juan Bautista experience was quite helpful here: I knew the language of the Mass, the songs, the rosary, the prayers, the liturgy, and what I was expected to respond and when. So, even though the accent was different and words on the street were different, the Mass was standard—and comfortable.
Although we hoteled in Madrid, we visited other cities. Toledo was fascination, not only because of its history (and, again, the Moor influence) but also because the folks we met with were chatty, and I got a chance to practice a lot of Spanish.
We visited university programs in both Madrid and Alcala (a truly Arabic-influenced name—the fortress), the birthplace of Cervantes, whose works I love. Who doesn’t? I had read some of them in Spanish in my advanced courses at Penn State a few decades earlier, but some things, like Don Quixote, one does not forget.
Spain? Slightly different language in accent and some lexicon (e.g., piso is not floor, like in San Juan Bautista and Latin America, but apartment—could create some confusion!), but one heck of a lovely linguistic booster shot!
For more precerpts from My 20th Language, click HERE.
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