The Fruits of My Labor

Monday was a big day in Operation: Become More Spanish.  First off, I went to Sevilla and picked up my TIE!  Indeed I am now a proud Spanish Identity Card-Holding member.  The card is like a mullet in that it's all business on the front: my photo and address, date of birth and ID number and all party in the back: my reason for being in Spain and my index finger fingerprint.  This may give the illusion of being business-like, but if you look closely at the fingerprint you'll see that is doesn't show the usual loops, whorls and arches.  Instead it frames the face of a baby.  It is as though my fingerprint and a sonogram head shot image were merged and placed on the back of my card. What does it mean?  Probably that someone in the Spanish Government's dark room is going to need a stern talking-to.

The second important accomplishment in my Mission was squeezing out the last bit of my Red, White and Blue toothpaste and moving on to a new Red and Yellow (with a coat of arms) tube.  I believe it was no coincidence that my American tube ran out on the same day I picked up my Spanish identity card.  The toothpaste tube is like a metaphor for my new Spanish (temporary) identity: it might still say Colgate on the outside and have a paste on the inside, but there's a distinct change in flavor from regular mint to spearmint.

In teaching English related news:  when a native Spanish speaker says a word in English that starts with a 'y' it often comes out as more of a 'j' sound.  So 'yes' sounds more like 'jes'.  It's important to note that they are two different sounds, however.  In class on Tuesday a student asked for clarification on something I had said in class.  She asked, 'Did you say that President Bush went to jail?' 'No,' I said, 'I said he went to YALE.'

Another common pronunciation error made by native Spanish speakers is that of the short 'i' sound, as in 'pin'.  They pronounce it more like 'peen'.  This came up in a conversation class with a couple of 5th level students.  We were actually talking about the difference between the 'ch' and the 'sh' sounds.  Students have a hard time hearing the difference between those two similar sounds.  For example, 'cheat sheet' sounds like one word repeated twice.  Then add in the 'i' sound problem, and you have three words in English that can be pronounced the same:  cheat, sheet, and shit.  Imagine the three of us sitting at the table in a cafe practicing the three words in a row:  cheat, sheet, shit.  Practice makes perfect.