How do you say "mass grave" in Spanish?
I've been spending the past two working days translating some Women in Black press releases from English to Spanish. I'm realizing that my Spanish isn't as good as I would like it to be. "Extradict," "detained," "to humiliate," and many other words have slipped from my memory, if they were ever there in the first place. I've found a reasonably good Spanish-English dictionary online and am progressing slowly. For an unexplicable reason, this computer has Spanish spell- and grammar-check, which is fabulous.
Last night, over some surprisingly good Montenegrin beer, I was complaining to some new friends about how spending so much time thinking in Spanish is not helping my ability to learn Serbian. About halfway through this rant, I realized that my companions were a Swede and a German and we were speaking in English.
The first of many ugly American moments, I am sure.
Last night, over some surprisingly good Montenegrin beer, I was complaining to some new friends about how spending so much time thinking in Spanish is not helping my ability to learn Serbian. About halfway through this rant, I realized that my companions were a Swede and a German and we were speaking in English.
The first of many ugly American moments, I am sure.
posted by rachel @ 9:53 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:50 PM,
Katja R. said…
I have spoken Spanish on and off since I was a kid because my family lived a time in Mexico, and I learned Bosnian in a rough and ready way, and I have to tell you it's not often I have that problem. The problem I do have is that the latinici way of writing in Bosnian is even more phonetic than Spanish othography so I find myself haveing to look and make sure I haven't written things that way, ie in Balkans Ladino! haha!
One of the people I tutored was descended from Jews from Sarajevo, and she'd get frustrated I'd tell her, for 500 years your ancestors spoke Spanish, we aren't Gringos you or I! She'd buck up and try harder.
I think my 'ugly American' moment was over oatmeal, which is hard to get in the Balkans. My ugly South West American moment was over the inability to find jalapenos, or decent curry! haha!
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