Traveler’s Tales: May the Force Be With You

Letting the force be with you in a foreign language.

Here’s the set up: I was invited once to a family wedding in Cali, Columbia.

All I knew about Cali was its reputation as the center of world narco-terrorism.

I’m a coward.

But my brother dared me.

Fortunately, my husband is a good sport and he agreed to come, along with our teenage daughter. Besides, the family promised they’d keep us safe.

No problemas.

Still, the city’s reputation left me feeling nervous.

My mother, a teacher, taught us knowledge is the key to everything, including combating fear.

I studied Spanish in college, back in the Dark Ages, and because I live in California, the language feels familiar.

I figured the trip would be much smoother if I could get my language skills up to speed.

So I bought the requisite language on CD program from Costco and set to work. Vocabulary returned quickly.

I listened to the news on a local Spanish radio station, where I quickly realized I needed a more radical approach.

Perhaps I could slowly parse out what someone wrote down, but once rapido words came at me, I was lost.

What could force me to understand better?

Movies?

I tried listening to audio cassettes, but while perusing our DVD collection one night, I discovered nearly one-third of our DVDs had a Spanish language option.

Muy bien!

We started watching movies in Spanish!

I began with children’s films, figuring a simple story might be easier to follow.

Dumbo taught me this lilting phrase: “You credo que veo todos, quando you veo un elefante velando.”

It would be hard to work the line into conversation, “I thought I’d seen everything when I saw an elephant fly,” but it sure tripped off the tongue beautifully.

I found it worked best if we watched a movie we knew well so I could focus on trying to understand the spoken words, rather than figuring out the story line.

Groundhog Day was the best choice–the same story over and over again, with plenty of vocabulary to learn.

My husband, who doesn’t speak Spanish, loved Pride and Prejudice in Spanish: “Mrs. Bennett sounds even more believable with Latin hysteria.”

We watched all our Jane Austen movies in Spanish after that. Click to Tweet

When the vocabulary CDs started teaching me selva, jungle, and estrangular, to strangle, I figured I was up for Bridge on the River Kwai. 

I added commandante, Commander, and esculpa–to escape. If we were kidnapped, I might be able to figure something out.

Even though the story is dramatic, we found it laughable to hear Japanese soldiers muttering “hola” and “alto (stop).”

Eventually, we added Spanish subtitles to the movies so I could follow the vocabulary by ear and eye. Sometimes they used different words, which only increased my knowledge base.

Pueda la fuerza contigo.

When the time came, I felt comfortable with a foreign tongue, though there’s nothing like trying to figure out what to say to someone chatting in local colloquialisms.

I tried my elephant line, which got laughs, but everyone’s favorite, of course, came from Star Wars: “pueda la fuerza contigo.”

You all know it and it pertains: “may the force be with you.”

Hasta la vista!

Tweetables

Learning Spanish for a trip: May the Force be With You! Click to Tweet

Using movie DVDs to learn Spanish! Click to Tweet