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Nov. 24th, 2015 04:52 pm
Al autobús
I don't read books in foreign languages to show off. I read books in foreign languages because I think this is preferable to reading them in English. Still, when I am reading a book in something other than English in public, there's a small part of me hoping someone will notice--despite the fact that this is something which almost never ever happens.
So I was caught quite off guard today when the man sitting next to me on the shuttle glanced over and blurted out "You speak Spanish!" We've ridden next to each other probably a half dozen times or more. If I'm ambitious enough to catch the early run, I almost end up next to him because, like me, he prefers the seat which is close to the door and has slightly more leg room than the others. He's a bit of a lavaballer, so the first time I ended up thighwrestling with him and even passive-aggressively offered to exchange seats and give him the aisle if he needed to "spread out a bit". He demurred; until today, those were the only words we'd exchanged.
In his opinion, Manuel Puig "isn't easy for learners", which is ironic given that relative ease was a major factor in why I chose him. I told him I found him easier going than Bolaño or García Márquez and he couldn't really argue with that. I tried expressing this in Spanish, but mangled it so bad at first that he thought I was asking where he was from. Naturally I was curious about that, too.
"You know where is Valencia? On the east coast? I'm from a town north of there. It's called Castellón."
"Castelló de la Plana? So, parles català?" Not wanting to offend, I amended, "O valencià?"
"Sí, parlo català."
"Llegeixo català també!" I told him--chuffed that I'd managed to get the first word out in recognisable form. This was just as the shuttle reached my stop, however, so we brought the convo to quick conclusion by introducing ourselves. (Naturally, I forgot how to say "Molt de gust!" but, having tried to remember that, didn't dare change gears and say, "¡Mucho gusto!" for fear of bolloxing it. Codeswitching is still not something I can pull off.)
So now, depending on how well I'm braining early in the morning, I either have an incentive to catch the early shuttle again and pick up where we left off or purposely sleep in and not have my terrible conversational skills put to the test.
So I was caught quite off guard today when the man sitting next to me on the shuttle glanced over and blurted out "You speak Spanish!" We've ridden next to each other probably a half dozen times or more. If I'm ambitious enough to catch the early run, I almost end up next to him because, like me, he prefers the seat which is close to the door and has slightly more leg room than the others. He's a bit of a lavaballer, so the first time I ended up thighwrestling with him and even passive-aggressively offered to exchange seats and give him the aisle if he needed to "spread out a bit". He demurred; until today, those were the only words we'd exchanged.
In his opinion, Manuel Puig "isn't easy for learners", which is ironic given that relative ease was a major factor in why I chose him. I told him I found him easier going than Bolaño or García Márquez and he couldn't really argue with that. I tried expressing this in Spanish, but mangled it so bad at first that he thought I was asking where he was from. Naturally I was curious about that, too.
"You know where is Valencia? On the east coast? I'm from a town north of there. It's called Castellón."
"Castelló de la Plana? So, parles català?" Not wanting to offend, I amended, "O valencià?"
"Sí, parlo català."
"Llegeixo català també!" I told him--chuffed that I'd managed to get the first word out in recognisable form. This was just as the shuttle reached my stop, however, so we brought the convo to quick conclusion by introducing ourselves. (Naturally, I forgot how to say "Molt de gust!" but, having tried to remember that, didn't dare change gears and say, "¡Mucho gusto!" for fear of bolloxing it. Codeswitching is still not something I can pull off.)
So now, depending on how well I'm braining early in the morning, I either have an incentive to catch the early shuttle again and pick up where we left off or purposely sleep in and not have my terrible conversational skills put to the test.