EXPRESIONES: UNA MESA REDONDA (A round table)

Todos sabemos que una mesa redonda no tiene esquinas. Así pues, en una mesa redonda todos los comensales ocupan el mismo lugar con relación a los demás. Es decir, no hay ningún lugar privilegiado. En el lenguaje figurado 'una mesa redonda' es una mesa en la que todos tienen el mismo derecho a la palabra así que hoy en día es sinónimo de debate, negociación y acuerdos. En la leyenda del rey Arturo, la Mesa Redonda o Tabla Redonda era una mesa mística de Camelot alrededor de la cual el rey y sus caballeros se sentaban para discutir asuntos cruciales para la seguridad del reino. En algunas versiones, el mago Merlín también tenía un asiento.

UNA MESA REDONDA / A ROUND TABLE

VOCABULARIO: SER RARO Y ESTAR DESCOLOCADO

The uses of SER and ESTAR can be difficult to explain to beginner students of the language as English has only the verb TO BE for both verbs.

Here are two idiomatic expressions that you can learn today: 

• SER RARO/A:  to be weird, strange

• ESTAR DESCOLOCADO/A: to be bewildered, which would imply 'a temporary state' rather than a personality trait.

This is a homage to the "weird" and the "bewildered" plus writers, poets and artists. This is the English translation:

"FORTUNATE BE THE WEIRDOS. THE POETS. THE BEWILDERED. THE ARTISTS. THE MUSICIANS. THE WRITERS & THE DREAMERS. BECAUSE THEY MAKE US LOOK AT THE WORLD WITH 'NEW EYES"

SPANISH VOCABULARY: EPITAFIO

PALABRAS CURIOSAS DEL ESPAÑOL

Epitafio es una palabra de origen griego que existe también en inglés. Hoy, día 2 de noviembre, festividad de Día de Muertos le dedicamos nuestra atención a los difuntos.

CURIOUS SPANISH WORDS: EPITAPH
Today, 2 November, in Mexico and many other countries is the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos, o el día de los difuntos). 

LA FAMILIA / the family

VOCABULARIO: BUENA SUERTE (good luck)

ENCONTRAR UN TRÉBOL DE 4 HOJAS ES SEÑAL BUENA SUERTE. Esta superstición es antiquísima, se cita ya en la Biblia. La buena suerte puede deberse, tal vez, a que  posibilidad de encontrar uno es remota. Hay un trébol de 4 hojas por cada 10 000 de tres.

FINDING A FOUR LEAF CLOVER OR A SHAMROCK IS A SIGN OF GOOD LUCK AND GOOD FORTUNE. This superstition is very old, there is one mention of the 4 leaf clover in the Bible. The chance of finding one, however, is remote as there is one 4 leaf clover for every 10 000 clover, may be that explain why finding one means 'to have good luck'.

HOW WE WISH GOOD LUCK:

¡buena suerte!
¡mucha suerte!
¡suerte!

¡que tengas suerte!
¡te deseo suerte!

In other European languages:

FRENCH: bonne chance; CATALAN: bona sort, molta sort; ITALIAN: buona fortuna; PORTUGUESE: boa sorte; GERMAN: viel Glück; ENGLISH: good luck and SPANISH: buena suerte, mucha suerte.

LOS BENEFICIOS DE LA LECTURA 4/10

Reading helps us to better understand the world we live in and ourselves.

Vocabulario: Una mariposa (a butterfly)

LA BELLEZA DE LA MARIPOSA  - The beauty of the butterfly

In other European languages:

FRENCH: le papillon; CATALAN: la papallona; ITALIAN: la farfalla; PORTUGUESE: a borboleta; GERMAN: der Schmetterlingsstil ; ENGLISH: the butterfly and SPANISH: la mariposa

SPANISH IDIOMS: Freir espárragos

When we are angry with someone we can use this expression that clearly convey the message of 'leave me alone' or 'you made me angry, get lost.

See below the picture for more examples of how to use this expression but be careful in using it unless your Spanish is almost as good as a native speaker.

Spanish idioms: estar como una cabra

QUOTES FROM DON QUIXOTE Chap. 18 / CITAS DE DON QUIJOTE Cap 18

(The Cervantes Year 1616 - 2016)

Are there teachings in Don Quijote de la Mancha? Is it a didactic novel? The Middle Ages were big on that and Cervantes, a Renaissance man, follows this tradition, or doesn't he?

HACER SUPOSICIONES / MAKING ASSUMPTIONS

USE OF THE FUTURE TENSE FOR MAKING ASSUMPTIONS

In English when we don't know a fact we can make an assumption based on our experience using 'may' or 'going to':

If the sky is grey and cloudy we can predict:

• It may rain or
• It is going to rain.

  

In Spanish we can use the future tense:

• Lloverá
• Va a llover

Here are some more examples:

SPANISH CINEMA - A SPANISH AFFAIR-2 (Ocho Apellidos Catalanes)

SPANISH FILM FESTIVAL IN AUSTRALIA 2016

A Spanish Affair - 2 (Rafa & Amaia, dancing)

Last year I wrote this post  A Spanish Affair (8 apellidos vascos) mostly for my students, so they could understand the film better. I wasn't expecting I would be doing it all over again this year but I am.  ‘A Spanish Affair -2 or (8 Apellidos Catalanes) seems to be getting the same accolades in Spain as A Spanish Affair did in 2014, so this has everyone excited, with the rumours that a part 3 is on the cards for next year, with the addition of another regional idiosyncrasy.

In 'A Spanish Affair-2 Catalonia enters the scene. This should not be taken lightly as the Catalan cause tends to polarise things in Spain, willingly or unwillingly; more on this later, now the story line of the film.

THE PLOT

In A Spanish Affair – 2  (8 Apellidos catalanes)

Amaia (the Basque girl) and Rafa (the Andalusian boy) have broken up.  Rafa returns to the South, to Sevilla, and Amaia moves to Girona, one of the 4 main cities in Catalonia, for a change of scene. There she meets Pau, a Catalan, and they fall in love. When Amaia's father, Koldo, finds out that her daughter intends to marry a Catalan he is not impressed. He travels to Sevilla to let Rafa know about Amaia’s plans, expecting that Rafa will go to Girona to regain Amaia's love and sabotage the wedding to that pretentious, bourgeois, know-all Catalan hipster, Pau.

But things in Catalonia are far from being normal. Catalonia has had one single goal since 1714: to recover its sovereignty that is, to become independent from Spain; having repeatedly been denied authorisation to held a referendum about the Independence by the central government , Catalans, in defiance, organise every now and then token 'pro-independence' events. In the film the planned wedding of Amaia and Pau will be celebrated in a hypothetical "Catalan Republic" set up in Pau's grandma's "masía" (a typical Catalan farm).

A SPANISH AFFAIR-2  (eating calçots and wearing bibs)

CULTURAL & SOCIAL STEREOTYPES OF THE CATALANS

Here are some cultural aspects that I think are relevant to this film.

An essential Catalan thing: el pà amb tomàquet. When Catalans have a ripe red tomato in their hands, they cut it in half. They get a slice of bread and rub the tomato on it; they sprinkle olive oil on the bread and add a pinch of salt. It is ready to eat. It only needs an omelette or some slices of salami, jamon serrano, chorizo or cheese added on top. 

Pà amb tomàquet i pernil

 Another culinary Catalan tradition happens every spring in theTarragona area (South of Barcelona) where people go with their family,  friends or colleagues to have a 'calçotada'.  This consists of eating large amounts of "calçots" (fat spring onions) dipped in a thick romesco sauce. The calçots are grilled over a hot fire, wrapped up in newspaper and served on terra cotta tiles.

Calçots a la brasa i salsa romesco

Eating 'calçots' is messy, as there is a lot of charcoal, and the calçots are huge, and the sauce drips everywhere as you raise your arm, with the calçot and attempt to put it into your mouth and eat it as best as you can; restaurants provide their customers with huge bibs to protect their clothes. It is enjoyable and fun and you can eat at your heart's content (=like a pig).

From the same area come 'the Human Towers' (els Castellers) and this also features in the film as part of the wedding celebration.

TARRAGONA - ELS CASTELLERS

So, what do Catalans think of their country? 

Catalans see Catalonia as the center of the Universe, metaphorically speaking as the word of their sea conveys: Med-i-terranean means "the middle of the earth". So they believe they live in a very special part of the Earth. They also believe that they belong to a nation that is civilized, democratic, cultured, open-minded, trendy, entrepreneurial, hard-working, imaginative, innovative, welcoming and, last but not least, truly beautiful. 

Many believe in Utopia and dream of an  independent Catalonia that will be known one day as the 'Norway of the South'. Fat chance, but believing in Utopia is free.

And Catalans? how do Catalans see themselves? 

Many Catalans feel closer to the French than to the rest of Spain. They see themselves as mostly secular and hardworking, a quality  that can be taken to extremes. Many Catalans could be considered workaholics. It is not a coincidence that Catalonia is the wealthiest part of Spain. In general they like to believe that they are an open and welcoming society, they have the reputation of being good negotiators and of taking a business-like approach in many aspect of life, they are pragmatic and practical and they value culture and education. 

Here is the definition of 2 traditional beliefs that Catalans hold dear to:

EL "SENY" Y LA "RAUXA"

I am quoting Wikipedia to explain these 2 concepts:

 "El seny" (from Latin sensus) is a form of ancestral Catalan concept meaning having good judgement, being prudent and acting with common sense. It involves a well-pondered perception of situations, level-headedness, awareness and integrity. Many Catalans consider seny as something unique to their culture, a true Catalan symbol which was passed from parents to children. Notice that I have used the past tense here.   

"La rauxa" is the opposite of seny: it is a sudden determination into action, having a fit of madness, an outburst of passion, some craziness and love of play.

The tricky part of this is how to live your life having these two opposing forces in perfect balance. It is very difficult. Many people believe that Catalans have lost the "rauxa", that they work too hard and don't take the time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. 

How are Catalans seen by the rest of Spain?

Because Catalans can be so nationalistic & proud these characteristics have been, on occasions, been used against themselves. Some political parties have used the 'Catalan cause' as their scapegoat. People love to have someone to hate, as this makes them forget about their shortcomings and daily frustrations, it is something that happens everywhere. In Australia where I live it was refugees for a while now are the very poor; in the US they believed that they were envied by the whole world and many feared invasions of aliens or who knows who. In any case it is useful, politically speaking, having someone to hate that you consider your inferior or below yourself. In Spain, Catalans have fulfilled this role at different intervals, with different levels of intensity. In all fairness I have to add that Catalan Nationalistic parties have done the same thing against the central government or parties that support the current centripetal status quo. 

I won't go into more detail about this touchy topic, but plenty of information is available in English on the internet.

THE CATALAN LANGUAGE

  

Catalans in the street with Pro-Independence Flags (with the white star)

Catalans have always defended their language with passion, especially during the Franco years, when the attempts to impose Castilian as the national language created a lot of resentment in the bi-lingual parts of Spain, namely Catalonia, Galicia and Euskadi. 

Catalan was not allowed to be taught in schools, so Catalans had to develop strategies to keep their language alive, especially in the written and printed form. Even the poorest of families would buy books written in Catalan, even those who could not or would not read them. It was wrong that Catalans could speak their language but did not know how to write it, as the teaching of Catalan in schools stopped in 1939, with the victory of General Franco. The Basques and the Galicians also defended their national languages, (Euskera and Galician) under Franco, but they were not as successful as the Catalans. 

This is not just a Spanish problem, though. Across the border, in France, the preservation of regional languages did not go well at all. Most have long been dead or mostly dead because the French variety spoken in Versailles crushed them all. Catalans did not allow this to happen with their language and that tells a lot about the kind of people they are. 

I guess that what happens is that minority languages are very fragile and they need the support and the love of their speakers, as they are an important part of their identity; the risk of failing to do that may results in an impersonal world that will end up "using"  8 or 9 languages for communication worldwide. THAT would be very sad. A pandemic of "sameness" is to be avoided at all costs.

What are the negative traits of Catalans? An excess of nationalistic pride that always comes across as too parochial, a tendency for being workaholics and, in general, Catalans are accused of being misers. Their love of money and of being stingy is a characteristic that was also associated with the Jews in the past when they lived in Catalonia in large numbers. Reluctance to spend money and an obsession for saving their money is the subject of many jokes about Catalans. 

As this post is already far too long I will stop here and finish with some jokes about Catalans.

JOKE 1
A man is walking down the street and bumps into a friend. 

The friend says: Any problems in your marriage?

The Catalan replies: No. Why do you ask? 

The friend replies: I notice you are not wearing your wedding ring. 

The man smiles and says: It's because this week it is her turn to wear it.

joke 2

'How do you get 10 Catalans into a car? Throw 2 euros inside. And how would you get them out? Tell them that the car is a taxi.

joke 3

A man visits his Catalan friend. He finds him removing the wallpaper off the walls. 

Redecorating your house? - he asks

No - says the Catalan -  We are moving.

JOKE 4

Three priests (a French, an English and a Catalan) are discussing how they distribute the alms collected in the parish.

The English Priests says they have a fair system. The draw a line on the floor and they throw the money in the air. What falls on the right is for God and what falls on the left is for the parish.

The French priest says their system is similar. They draw a circle. What falls into the circle is for God and what falls outside the circle is for the parish.

The Catalan priest then says: Our systems is the best. We throw the money in the air. What God grabs he can keep and what falls on the ground is for the parish.

joke 5
two flies are talking about holidays.
-Where did you go?
- To the capital. And you?
- Don't want to think about it. I got inside the handbag of a Catalan woman and I spent the whole month locked inside! 

LOS BENEFICIOS DE LA LECTURA 3/10

THE BENEFITS OF READING 3/10

"Reading provide us with words: the tools to express our thoughts and our feelings:

SPANISH VERBS: DUCHARSE (to shower)

DUCHARSE is a reflexive verb meaning to shower.

LOS BENEFICIOS DE LA LECTURA 2/10

BENEFITS OF READING 2/10

Reading provides an inextinguishable combustible for the imagination.

SPANISH VERBS: Callejear [to wander (about), to stroll (around) the streets]

CALLEJEAR is a Spanish verb which is associated with the noun 'calle' (street).

The verb  'callejear' implies:

• the existence at least one street and
• being in the appropriate mood that is, being relaxed, idle or curious while walking around.


EXAMPLES:

- Me gusta callejear por Madrid (I like strolling around Madrid)

- Antes los chicos y chicas podían callejear solos; ahora sus padres tienen miedo de que les pase algo malo
(Before boys and girls could wander the streets alone; now parents fear that something bad could happen to them)

- Venga, basta ya de callejear. Vamos para casa
   (Come on, enough of tramping the streets. Let's go home)

POESÍA - Karmelo C. Iribarren (Malos tiempos) (Bad times)

Poema de Karmelo C. Iribarren (San Sebastián, 1959)

MALOS TIEMPOS
Ándate con cuidado,
que no se entere nadie

de que lo pasas bien,
que tu vida funciona,
y eres feliz a ratos.
Hay gente que es capaz
de cualquier cosa,
cuando ve una sonrisa.




BAD TIMES
Watch out,
that no one finds out 
that you are having a good time, 
that your life is working 
and that you are happy from time to time.  
There's people who is capable 
of anything 
when they see a smile. 




Este poema se publicó en la antología "Seguro Que Esta Historia Te Suena". Poesía Completa, 1985-2012

LOS BENEFICIOS DE LA LECTURA 1/10

THE BENEFITS OF READING 1/10:
Reading improves memory & increases intellectual abilities.

SPANISH VERBS: ACOSTARSE (to go to bed)

ACOSTARSE is a reflexive verb that we use when we want  to say we are going to bed.

Cada día me acuesto a las 10 y media 

(Every day I go to bed at 10.30)

PRESENT TENSE (present )

me acuesto

te acuestas,

se acuesta,

nos acostamos,

os acostáis,

se acuestan.

  

Mi hermano menor SE ACUESTA temprano pero yo ME ACUESTO tarde.

 (My younger brother goes to bed early but I go to bed late)

SIMPLE PAST (pretérito indefinido) 

me acosté,

te acostaste,

se acostó,

nos acostamos,

os acostasteis,

se acostaron.
 

Ayer ME ACOSTÉ muy tarde porque salí con mis amigos. Era sábado. 

(Yesterday I went to bed very late because I went out with my friends. It was Saturday)

FUTURE (futuro simple)

me levantaré,

te levantarás,

se levantará,

nos levantaremos,

os levantaréis,

se levantarán.

Mañana me acostaré temprano porque mi vuelo sale a las 6 de la mañana.
(Tomorrow I will go to bed early because my flight leaves at 6am)

Antes de acostarme mi madre y yo leemos un cuento.

(Before going to be, my mother and I read a story).



COMMON EXPRESSIONS:

Es hora de acostarse = it's bed time!
Acostarse con las gallinas = to go to bed early (when the chooks go to bed ;)
Acostarse muy tarde = to have a late night
Acostarse con alguien = to score with s/one
Acostarse y levantarse temprano = to keep early hours
No acostarse en toda la noche = to be up all night