It\u2019s not that my co-workers and I don\u2019t understand one another; I\u2019ve been able to keep up with and participate in the majority of our discussions. But every once in a while I will be riding the wave of conversation and then BAM! I am left swimming without my surfboard. I know what the culprit is too: Los dichos<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Los dichos<\/i>, or sayings, are the phrases, slang, or words we use that do not directly translate into another language. I know a bunch from Mexico – vato<\/i> (dude), dime con quien andas y te dir\u00e9 quien eres<\/i> (birds of a feather flock together) \u2013 but zero from Spain. Not to mention that all of the palabrotas <\/i>(curse words) I know from Mexico don\u2019t have the same negative meaning here and are used everyday. It took me a week before I would say, \u201c\u00bfme coja una soda?\u201d (get me a soda). And that\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg\u2026 (an american dicho<\/i>).<\/p>\n
Last week I translated a proposal for a company that makes catheters (I learned a bunch<\/i> of new words during this one!). Things were going well until I got to a certain phrase: \u201clas palancas de inspiraci\u00f3n<\/i>.\u201d I understood the direct translation. Palancas<\/i> – lever, inspiraci\u00f3n<\/i> – inspiration, but \u201clevers of inspiration\u201d didn\u2019t make sense in English. I understood the sentido<\/i> (meaning) of the dicho<\/i> – the exchange of energy to lift or move something – but there wasn\u2019t a direct translation to English. I tried motivation, tools, leveraging, and nothing seemed to fit. At another point I was faced with entender<\/i> (to understand) and comprender<\/i> (to understand). I understood these words to be interchangeable. That\u2019s why I was stumped when they were listed right after each other in the steps of a process: 1) entender 2) comprender. It turns out that entender<\/i> is to understand something, while comprender<\/i> is to really \u201cget\u201d it.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the best translation I can come up with so far.<\/p>\n
I accept that there are millions of words I do not know. When my partner in the project, \u00c1lvaro, and I get to a point where we can\u2019t explain something to each other in either Spanish or English, we bust out pen and paper and start sketching or act it out so that the other can guess the meaning. Todays spontaneous game of pictionary and charades included my co-worker explaining a surgical procedure and me describing when we moved my house down the street. (Yes, we moved the actual house\u2026) Those are things you don\u2019t learn to say in Spanish class. Sure I can ask Dond\u00e9 est\u00e1 la biblioteca<\/i> or tengo que usar el ba\u00f1o<\/i>, but those aren\u2019t exactly useful phrases when I\u2019m trying to negotiate deals and create new processes to sell kitchens in IKEA.<\/p>\n
Language is a fickle thing. We use words, sentences and phrases to transfer meaning. The thought-stuff that is inside our heads that we code into words and spit out to be received and decoded into more thought-stuff in a different brain. It\u2019s complicated and we don\u2019t all do it the same way. That is why we have \u201cmiscommunication\u201d or why we have a thought that we can\u2019t put into words. It is also why we can convey something deep that no dictionary could explain, with something as simple as un abrazo<\/em>. Meaning to meaning. Though I might not always entender<\/i> everything that my colegas<\/i> at Soulsight say, I do comprender<\/i> that they care and respect me. From the moment I walked through the door I felt like I was part of their team.<\/p>\n Often we see language as the biggest barrier between people. Wars have been fought simply because people couldn\u2019t communicate. And while it is<\/i> true that sometimes complex topics like politics, legal discrepancies, or even catheters require a deep understanding of the language, the most complex feelings can be told without exchanging a single word. Sometimes we get so caught up in the dichos<\/i> and details of life that we forget that we are all human, and that we share \u201cmeanings,\u201d even if we don\u2019t share a native tongue.<\/p>\n Sometimes, we just have to play charades and act it out.<\/p>\n I have been playing an ongoing game of charades for two weeks. I made the decision to move to Madrid and work with Soulsight for my second term with Experience institute. Not only is the work new and exciting, but it\u2019s also in Spanish. \u2026 and my rusty Spanish is Mexican-Spanish, not Spain-Spanish. It\u2019s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[42,40,41,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"20150210_142136\"](\"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/20150210_142136-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"