Mexico teaser

In a splurge of non-academic productivity, here's blog #2! Hopefully my writing will get better in time but for now... tuff luck.

Going to Cuba was awesome! I got to practice my Spanish quite a lot! Hablo el espanol muy bien. Haha! Well I try. It got me really excited and anxious about Mexico.

It was really nice to see the Latin American dialect since my class teaches the Spanish from Spain. Not much differs. It is quite comparable to the Canadian French and the one of France. In Latin America, they do not us the "vosotros" (the Spanish equivalent of "vous" or the plural you in English). They use “ustedes” (the Spanish equivalent of “ils” or “they” in English) or “usted” for the singular formal use. I thought this was quite interesting. You always wonder when you will actually cross path with something you learn in school in real life.

I got this down rather easily since my Spanish teacher thought me this once she heard I was heading to Mexico for the summer. The pronunciation is much different as well. I should have written down the major differences but the lack of pen and paper did not allow it. As much as I tried to understand the Cubans, I know it will be a different story in Mexico. Like Quebecers who don’t understand New-Brunswickers.

My favorite part of the trip, linguistic wise, was when we were walking (wow that’s a lot of w’s) around in Cienfuego. This is the city where we swam with the dolphins. We got to shop in some markets. Of course, unlike the resort, there were a lot less English speaking people in the city. I managed to get the information either Maryse or her sister was looking for after making people repeat once or twice. Even though I did not always grasp what they were saying, I got the just of it. This made me very anxious about Guadalajara since even though I can manage to make people understand what I want to say, I have a hard time understanding what they have to say. Let’s just hope I don’t get into too much trouble in the first few days in Mexico. I just remind myself that I will be rooming with 3 non-Mexican students who will most likely speak English. At least I will be able to get their take on the Do’s and Don’ts of Guadalajara.

Only 2 months to go!

Mucho amor,

Val