Going back to Britain, this time as a tourist, is a weird feeling: The same feeling when handling its pounds and pence there's a strange mixed feeling of familiarity and cool detachment. This is completely at odds with the feelings I have about the English language. I am still a bumbling idiot in Spanish locked in silence through the dual binds of incomprehension and fear of being misunderstood When I get the chance to talk English to a native I babble away endlessly; delighting in the opportunity to stretch my wings and speak with a preciseness and fluidity I miss.
Afterthought:
This was written in varying degrees of illness the first draft by hand, the second on the keyboard. I feel it lacks a decent conclusion, but I'm now feeling too ill to care and I don't want add it to the pile of unpublished El Guiri articles that just don't make the grade.Technorati Tags:
ElGuiri, English, London, Spanish
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3 comments:
Oh dear, sorry to hear you aren't well. I hope it's "merely" something flu like and not a serious malady.
I have the problem that I speak so much Spanish, I've lost fluidity in English (writing is fine, because I have time to think / correct) and end up getting English speakers to play guessing games when I can only remember the Spanish words! :)
Conclusion? Nah, life and learning a language is a journey and, even when you think you've cracked it, languages are living, dynamic things. There may be no conclusion.
On other matters, of which I shall be writing in due course, there will be a very unsatisfactory conclusion. Worse, I shall be seeing that horrible country as something other than a tourist.
nah just a nasty cold from being run down. Mixed with my other problems it can be quite tiresome. When were you last in Britain?
I've discovered I have trouble remembering English brand names words which I suppose I don't use much in teaching or in general speech anymore. Without constant reminders from adverts they've just gone! I sound stupid in Spanish as I have to break ideas down when lacking the word which is frustrating when I've spent my entire life learning.
The last time I was in Britain was for my father's funeral in 2001, briefly, for a week. Since most of that time was spent on organizing related things and executing his will, I didn't really have much opportunity to look around. What I felt, however, even just landing at the airport, was the underlying tension. The last time before that, was in 1993, to clean up my own affairs and again, I just wanted to be back on a plane and outa there.
Yeah, brand names, products, inventions ... the whole world has changed drastically since I left the UK in 1992. If I can remember anything, what use will it be? :)
Hell, I sound stupid in any language and yes, I do still do the long winded equivalent in Spanish of "the machine to do this to that", when I don't know the word. But then, so do the local people around here, who, to be as polite as I can, have been living apart from the rest of civilization for so long they're almost like a lost tribe. I just fit right in! :)
Hope the cold gets better fast, though at this time of year, when the weather is getting warmer, it seems harder to shake them. Might be a good time to ask the farmacia for una tonica (sin gin.)
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