Re: the movie recs, have you watched Amores perros by
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I can attempt to hang with castellano! Hilariously my only real-world Spanish-speaking experience was a slightly ill-fated trip to Andalucia in 1998 with my even-less-fluent sister when we were teenagers so, I mean, we got by, but it was a shock.
I had not really truly realized before now how fast standard Mexican Spanish is. I mean, other South American accents, I’m like, this is okay, maybe I speak this language, and then Mexicans talk and I’m like you are the new yorkers of latin america and i will never be fluent. I’m sure this must vary within Mexico but I wouldn’t know, it’s all this high-speed stream of syllables I can’t parse. (I can’t begin to guess at the Caribbean regional accents, I’m not there yet.)
I should have guessed, though- I used to do roller derby with a woman from Argentina who became a translator for the FBI and when she told us, in genuine distress, that her Spanish wasn’t good enough for her new job, we all laughed, and she shook her head and said no you don’t understand, most of what they want me to translate is Mexicans, I can’t keep up with that! I assumed she meant the slang, but apparently it was also the speed.
I mean, all I’ve seen of y tu mama is the scene where Gael and Diego make out, so I should probably, you know, make an honest movie of it at some point.
I should link here to the terrible, terrible BBC atrocity of an educational telenovela that I have been watching, which is ostensibly set in Spain but I can understand them so who even knows, there’s barely a lisp to be had. This show is great if you want to time travel to the 1970s. “Una camisa moderna, Mamá!” he says, as his aged mother clicks her tongue at the olive floral monstrosity she’s trying to iron, which he later wears with, wait for it, a rust-colored three-piece suit with painted-on bell-bottom pants. Phenomenal. It’s called Zarabanda, and there is smoking and drinking in every scene, plus near-constant tape hiss in all audio. I can’t wait for the inevitable country-boy-debauched-by-city-girls scene that must be within the first five episodes.
I can attempt to hang with castellano! Hilariously my only real-world Spanish-speaking experience was a slightly ill-fated trip to Andalucia in 1998 with my even-less-fluent sister when we were teenagers so, I mean, we got by, but it was a shock.
I had not really truly realized before now how fast standard Mexican Spanish is. I mean, other South American accents, I’m like, this is okay, maybe I speak this language, and then Mexicans talk and I’m like you are the new yorkers of latin america and i will never be fluent. I’m sure this must vary within Mexico but I wouldn’t know, it’s all this high-speed stream of syllables I can’t parse. (I can’t begin to guess at the Caribbean regional accents, I’m not there yet.)
I should have guessed, though- I used to do roller derby with a woman from Argentina who became a translator for the FBI and when she told us, in genuine distress, that her Spanish wasn’t good enough for her new job, we all laughed, and she shook her head and said no you don’t understand, most of what they want me to translate is Mexicans, I can’t keep up with that! I assumed she meant the slang, but apparently it was also the speed.
I mean, all I’ve seen of y tu mama is the scene where Gael and Diego make out, so I should probably, you know, make an honest movie of it at some point.
I should link here to the terrible, terrible BBC atrocity of an educational telenovela that I have been watching, which is ostensibly set in Spain but I can understand them so who even knows, there’s barely a lisp to be had. This show is great if you want to time travel to the 1970s. “Una camisa moderna, Mamá!” he says, as his aged mother clicks her tongue at the olive floral monstrosity she’s trying to iron, which he later wears with, wait for it, a rust-colored three-piece suit with painted-on bell-bottom pants. Phenomenal. It’s called Zarabanda, and there is smoking and drinking in every scene, plus near-constant tape hiss in all audio. I can’t wait for the inevitable country-boy-debauched-by-city-girls scene that must be within the first five episodes.