Sunday, June 29, 2008 The Spanish Language

I spent part of the day in our casita, home alone, studying Spanish. Studying a language requires one to be receptive, to open to the newness. One must relinquish one’s first language to absorb the new one. Those students who hold onto the sound of English and the syntax of English, have a hard time “getting” the new language.

Warren Hardy, based here in San Miguel, has developed an inspired systema, a program for adults, based on the idea that adult brains are no longer wired to learn language. I’m finding that the system is working. I’ve tried many times to learn Spanish in my adult life, mostly on my own with this book and that, or this community class or university intensive, but this is the system that is actually working.

You learn so much about a culture/country/people by studying their language.

You learn so much about your own culture/country/people by studying a foreign language.

Looking at the English versus the Spanish syntax, I cannot help but theorize this:

In English, the order of a simple sentence is generally as follows:

Subject; verb; direct object; object.

Such as: I bought it for her.

In Spanish the order of a simple sentence is generally as follows:

Indirect object; direct object; verb whose ending tells you the subject of the sentence (I, for instance), then a clarifier as to who it was actually for.

Spanish: Se lo compré a ella. [For her, it, bought, I, for her]

So here comes the (completely non-academic and unlearned) cultural theory part.

In Hispanic culture, we start with all the other people, generously, that is, the objects; next comes the action word, the verb; finally, comes the subject, in this case, I and then you clarify who it was for.

In American or western English-speaking cultures, first comes the subject (I); then action (verb), and lastly all those other people or objects.

So the Hispanic is all about other people, okay, some action, and then the subject or, in this case, the self, and lastly a clarifier of who it was for. In American culture, it’s all about I (or some other subject) doing action, moving ahead, and finally, all those other people and actions. A self-motivated workaholic culture. Me, included, I’m sorry to say.