Just for kicks, I thought I´d share with you my mental processes this morning as I walked from Spanish class to lunch.
Since I´d just finished class, I felt the need to attempt thinking in Spanish. Since I´d been in a hurry that morning, my main thoughts were that I needed to find a newspaper before I went to lunch, and that I wasn´t sure where to find one where I was at the time. Since the main didactic method that Spanish teachers use to build fluency in their pupils is repetitive, slightly changing practice with the same structured phrase, my thoughts were thus, as I passed all the shop windows and daily life in quest of El Comercio:
I don´t want a fancy pink dress, I want to buy a newpaper.
I don´t want to buy telephones, I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want fried bananas, I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want to get my brakes repaired, I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want...wait, what the hell is that?...I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want an inexpensive funeral package, I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want a lunch of cow stomach with peanut sauce, I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want to buy shoes, I want to buy a newspaper.
I don´t want a restaurant named after a salsa-dancing monkey, I want to buy a newspaper. Hmm, what if I wanted to buy a salsa dancing monkey? Oh crap, I think I´d need to use the subjunctive for that one. It...hmmm, it would depend on the degree of certainty I have about whether the monkey dances salsa. If it´s a habitual action which is frequently experienced, it would be the ¨monkey salsa-dancing.¨ But otherwise, it would be ¨the monkey who may dance salsa.¨ It would...I think it would be like when you´re looking for an open internet cafe on Sunday night--you aren´t sure there is one, so it´s ¨lugar que esté abierto¨, not ¨lugar abierto¨ . I think the monkey is the same. I´d have to querer un mono que sepa bailar, wouldn´t I?
Dammit, I need a newspaper. A nice English newspaper.
Does the monkey salsa dance all the time, or only when it feels like it? I mean, does this restaurant feature the salsa-dancing monkey as entertainment, or is this merely the place that the salsa-dancing monkey comes when he/she wants to salsa dance?
ReplyDeleteOr, does the monkey prefer to dance in a bowl of tomatoes, onions, garlic and cilantro?
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, Sonia. I'm just catching up now on a bunch of your clever, funny, insightful posts. Amy and I used to go to a Mexican restaurant in Cuenca when I'd visit her. Not sure if it was the Azteca. I remember a Brazilian woman there singing, "No woman, no cry" while we ate a pretty decent imitation of Mexican food. I brought my friend/student, Freddy, with me from Machala and he fell in love with Mexican food. Freddy and I also traveled to Baños (that time riding up the Nariz del Diablo train from Guayaquil, on the roof) for some European food (I forget what) and Freddy looked at this menu of things I was excited about and said, "No tienen arroz? No tienen platanos?"
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the world of ya mismo! I miss it!