written whilst living in Spain
1. Be woken up at 6.30 am by workshy teenage Neanderthal downstairs neighbour playing a techno version of Bonnie Tyler singing "I need a hero" for 5 mornings on the trot (having arrived home from school at 11 pm every night.)
2. Be subjected to more remixed Bonnie Tyler and other eurotrash techno tunes at a volume which makes your fillings rattle and plates jump off your kitchen shelves for 3 hours of siesta time.
3. Have "Radio Nacional de España" blasted into your kitchen every night by stone-deaf next door neighbour, especially savouring the way the football commentators scream "Goooooooooooooooaaaallll!" for about 10 minutes when a goal is achieved by either side.
4. Go to bed and stuff earplugs in your ears in an unsuccessful attempt to drown out the 70s -style gameshows emanating from your neighbours' flat all night.
5. Finally lose it, go down and hammer on your neighbours' door in a frantic manner.
Y esta! You (and they) will be amazed at the fluent Spanish which pours forth!
"!Es la una de la manaña! Tengo que trabajar! !Estoy harta de tu ruido! !Harta! Hasta la nariz! !Solo quiero vivir en paz! !Ya basta! !Ya no puedo suportarlo!!"*
* It's one in the morning! I have to work! I'm sick of your noise! Sick of it! I've had it up to here! I just want peace and quiet! Enough already! I can't bear it anymore!
I may even have stamped my foot. Maybe my Spanish isn't getting better, maybe I'm just turning into a Spanish person...
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12 comments:
Very Spanish, very Latino, very Caribbean behaviour. tut tut tut :-D
ha ha ha
You know you are fluent when you can get angry and curse with aplomb.
What does 'ya basta' mean again?
I guess you were unlucky enough to have our own Spanish version of chav as a neighbour! ;)
Do you find that large amounts of booze help with the Spanish as well?
GG, it takes a lot to get through that steely English reserve you know...
Greavsie, "ya basta" translates very nicely into "Enough already."
Hola Chica! Yup, they most certainly were... is there a Spanish word for chav? (Hope you're having fun in London by the way!)
Yes indeed, US. At least, I felt that I was speaking fluently. Spaniards who I was conversing with may have disagreed ;-)
Booze always works wonders. Who needs expensive language courses?
I am learning Spanish at the moment and that was quite helpful!
Ya Basta! Estoy harto hasta la nariz! I like that!
Annie, this is invaluable, I'm going to learn it off by heart to screech at the ratboy downstairs who has 3 hiphop records to his name, but limits himself mainly to 2 of them. Great stuff - what's the spanish for "push it real good?" to continue our salt n' peppa theme?
You got one too Em? My sympathies...
"Empújelo muy fuerte", I believe... Lees is also up for it. We were also toying with the idea of treating the punters to a white, North London girls' version of the Sugarhill Gang rap, what do you say? Is it a date?
Absolutely, Alda. It's great for lowering our Anglo-Saxon inhibitions, and language is all about communication, right? ;-)
Any time Cream - my favourite Spanish expression, which you may also like, is "No me da un pepino" - ("I don't give a cucumber") - I thought our Spanish teacher was winding us up but I really heard people say it!
"No me da un pepino" should actually be "Me importa un pepino". We also say "Me importa un pimiento" (I don't give a pepper) to say that we don't give a fuck about a thing. We're vegans, you see! :)
There isn't a proper word for chav, you know, it's such and English thing... But we've also got our own annoying people, like the 'bakalas' or 'pelaos', you probably saw them around when you were in Spain.
Oops, thanks Chica!
"Chav...is such an English thing", how very sad but true! Bakalas/pelaos are new words for me, though I'm sure I saw them - you see that Em? Next time hip-hop boy bothers you, you can call him a Pelao.
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