Language

My Spanish Learning

From one of my faithful blog readers: I would like you to share with us how you started learning Spanish (I have read your Spanish vs French page), how much time it took you to master the language, why you chose Spanish and not Italian, etc.

I’d been studying French in high school for two years and loved it, so I decided it would be fun to learn another language. The only languages offered at my school were French and Spanish, so that made that decision easy. As for how long it took me to master it, quite frankly I haven’t. I studied Spanish for two years in high school and maybe 2 in college, and I did some Spanish translation/interpretation classes at MIIS. My level is about intermediate – I know a lot of grammar, and can often correct my husband* but when I speak my tongue gets very tied and usually wants French to come out instead. I can understand a lot more than I can say.

*He speaks Spanish fluently thanks to having worked and lived with Mexicans for more than 10 years, but he never really studied it, so does not ever know why he says anything a particular way.

What’s so great about Costa Rica?

I became fascinated by Costa Rica many years ago – I don’t know exactly when, but long before my first visit. There were essentially two things that made me want to see it for myself. The first is that Costa Rica has no army, and the second is that it has a lot of rainforests. I don’t know which I learned first, but the two together equalled a strong desire to see it for myself.

Then when I finally did go, for two weeks at the end of December 1998/beginning of January 1999, I fell in love. We visited both coasts, went white water rafting through the rainforest (one of most amazing things I’ve ever done), hiked in the cloud forest, took an aerial tram over the rainforest, and just generally had a blast. The people we met were nice and the beaches are gorgeous.

There were a few hiccups. The Spanish is different than anything I’d ever heard before – a lot of the vowels get swallowed, making it harder to understand (though I’m sure I’ll get used to it before long). The capital, San José, isn’t really anything to write home about. And we learned that the best way to travel in the country is with the domestic airlines, rather than the buses, at least in the western half of the country. We once got on a bus that for some reason we thought would take a couple of hours, but turned out to take nearly 12, due to horribly potholed roads and numerous stops.

When we went again in 2005, we concentrated on what we’d liked the most: rafting and the beach. It was, again, phenomenal.

Eggcorns

English lovers and nitpickers take note – I just discovered a great site, called The Eggcorn Database. An eggcorn is a particular type of English mistake wherein the wrong word is used in a common expression. It is usually due to ignorance of the underlying meaning and etymology, and is often the substitution of one homophone for another, such as “towing the line” (rather than “toeing the line”) or else a similar-sounding word, such as “fermenting trouble” when you really mean “fomenting trouble.” I’ve always been fascinated by these kinds of mistakes, which are, I believe, cousins of the common English mistakes I so love to explain on my own site.

Bravitude

So the big news in the French press is about the word bravitude used by presidential hopeful Ségolène Royal.

Comme le disent les Chinois, un Chinois qui ne vient pas sur la Grande muraille n’est pas un brave et un Chinois qui vient sur la Grande muraille conquiert la bravitude.
"As the Chinese say, a Chinese person who does not come on the Great Wall is not a brave person and a Chinese person who comes on the Great Wall conquers bravery."

Royal’s use of this word set off something of a firestorm in the French news (including a mocking version of the French motto Liberté, égalité, fraternité).

Critics are comparing it to Bushisms like “misunderestimate,” but Royal says that it wasn’t a mistake – she coined the word because the word bravoure just wasn’t strong enough for the Chinese proverb she was translating. It’s an interesting question – what’s the difference between using a word that doesn’t exist because you don’t know any better and using one that doesn’t exist, but (maybe) should?

Her campaign co-director Jean-Louis Bianco said:

Je pense que ce qu’elle a voulu exprimer c’est la plénitude de la bravoure… c’est-à-dire quelque chose de plus que la simple bravoure.
“I think that what she wanted to express was the fullness of bravery… that is, something more than simple bravery.”

Her advisor Jack Lang said:

J’aurais aimé inventer ce beau mot. Il exprime la plénitude d’un sentiment de bravoure. L’inventivité sémantique fait partie de la capacité d’un candidat à parler une autre langue que la langue de bois.
“I would have liked to invent this nice word. It expresses the fullness of a feeling of bravery. Semantic inventiveness is part of the capacity of a candidate to speak rather than waffle.”

(Source: NouvelObs)

Bravitude is a blend of brave and plénitude and means “fullness/completeness of bravery.” I wouldn’t recommend using it; we’ll just have to wait and see if and when it gets added to the French dictionary. 😉

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