Friday, September 02, 2016

Spanish

It all started off, for me, with the yellow boards on recently cleaned floors, saying, "Cuidado: Piso Mojado" and in English, "Caution: Wet Floor".

I love languages, and when a new language constantly makes its presence obvious to me, I feel the need to learn it. Learning a new language is like being able to get a glimpse into another world.

In many public places here in California, there are boards in both Spanish and English, and for me, it was but a natural progression to want to learn Spanish.

Duolingo came to the rescue. It is free, and fun and convenient. Both the website and the app are great to learn from. Puttachi and I have been learning Spanish together over the summer.  It's exciting to recognize words written in Spanish on boards, and to guess what the notice is about, without having to look at the English version.

It cracks both of us up when we speak like this - "It's going to be cold manana, so don't forget to take your chaqueta azul, and I'm going to cut manzanas and put quesa in your emperadado for el desayuno" :)

It doesn't have Indian languages yet, but I read that Hindi will be added early next year.

3 comments:

SG said...

It is good that you and Puttachi are learning Spanish. All kids around the world should learn Spanish. Every country, to some extent, dependent on America. All international contracts are quoted only in U.S. Dollars. In USA, Spanish is already a second language. Even DMV tests and voter ballots are both in English and Spanish.

However, there is no official language for USA in their Constitution. This is a big mistake by both the political parties. In about 30 to 40 years there will be more Spanish speaking people in USA than English speaking. They are going to demand all transaction be done in Spanish. In other words, Spanish will replace English as the business language of USA.

Bhanumathi said...

Hi Shruthi

I am a great fan of your writing. I read all your posts and the picked up your books for my daughters!

Your post on Spanish brought back memories of how and when I started liking and learnt Spanish, rather still learning. Likewise my daughters and I practice Espanol!

Es un placer leer sus blogs!

Shruthi said...

Aw muchas gracias, Bhanumathi! :)

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