Thursday, November 08, 2012

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Last night was our final session of Spanish for Nursing.  My friend, Donna, and I felt sad as we walked away from it.  It was such fun!  We made some new friends, too.

Our instructor, Patricia, was delightful.  She told us a lot funny stories, mostly regarding the misuse of words.  She told us of a pastor visiting in Equador or Mexico or somewhere (I've forgotten that part).  He was introduced to a large crowd and received warm applause.  When he stood he meant to say that he felt embarrassed by the attention.  For embarrassed he used the word embarazada.  Unfortunately he told the crowd that HE was pregnant!

She warned us of some word usage that could confuse us.  For example, the word for constipation is constipado.  That seemed easy enough.  She warned us, though, that many Spanish-speaking people use constipado to describe nasal congestion!  It wouldn't be good if someone was trying to tell us they had sinus congestion and we tried to give an enema!

She also told us about the word, Papa.  Apparently she was teaching a prior group that Papa with a capital "P" stood for the pope.  The word, papa, meant father.  The word, papa` means potato.  When she taught that, someone said, "So the pope is a big potato?"

For our final class our instructor brought along a friend of her's who doesn't speak much English.  The friend had her 14 year old daughter and 5 year old daughter along.  Although the girls are bilingual, they were told to pretend they could not speak English.  We did nurse talk, trying to find out where they had pretend pain and such.  It was really funny and enjoyable.

I did have a little hispanic patient yesterday at work.  It felt good to be able to tell him to not be afraid, etc.  I don't think he was much impressed by me but it is ok as I impressed myself!

So, now the hard part... remembering what I learned!  I want to keep practicing.  I was afraid I was too old to learn a new language but it turns out I'm not.  Also, I've learned that I really like the Spanish language.  It sounds pretty to my ears.  I hope that I can find sensible ways to continue learning it.  Any suggestions?

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