Fire vs. Ice
May 3, 2007
Ok before I moved to South America, one of the main things and aspect I noticed about the latino culture from tv was their love for the rhythm of their music to the likes of samba or salsa. Music that just gives flavor and life the parties. That just sets in my head about the people that would ignite the wonder of how these people would to be generally in real life.
Technique I should know… I myself am latino of decent with both my parents being from Paraguay, a small nation in South America. But there is one factor here, I was born in Canada and lived there for pretty much my whole life, where my parents left me with little teachings on where I came and other kinds of things such as my family history or the full detailed aspects of the Paraguay culture, or latin culture in general. So you might say that I can be ignorant towards my peoples history, that is til one day I made a big decision that would change my life.
I moved in with my mom to Paraguay after my folks divorced and I was in my middle teens at the time. So here I am with a particular mindset and way of being vs. a foreign atmosphere where I had little education about it prior. Over the years I had many friends from being the locals, to some various exchange students over the time.
But one reoccurring theme as come to mind, despite the different in appearance was the difference in character traits.
To speak in a broad sense, the americans and even europeans has more of colder traits than the latino counterpart, over here for example would be a common known faux paux where if you do not greet one when you enter a group of people then the person in question would take much great offense than one would in a similar situation in a north american setting. The latinos are known to be considered a warm people where they greet someone, even if they don’t them very well they would greet them anyways with a more forward approach, so you can say that the latinos would be more friendly in that major form of human interaction. However you the reader wouldn’t be as colourful to others if you don’t know them very well. I am speaking in a general sense remember, I don’t refer you the reader as an individual but as a whole in the american, british canadian etc. population.
Life here in south america can have it’s advantages if you want to make alot of friends easily for instance the “clique” subculture seems to be virtually non-existent in their school systems and I have heard about many testimonials from the exchange students (nearly all of them) saying that it is def. easier to talk to people and have an overall great time down here and never want to leave.
Family is another very important aspect to the culture, whereas the sense of a true family unit is greatly more extended and reconized with a thicker sense of loyal to the family. That would be one of the reasons that I moved here since ALL of my family resides in this country, over the years I have learned to greatly appreciate them more so than ever, unlike from living in Canada where I felt lonely and was very far from my true family so I wouldn’t get alot of unconditional support I do here in Paraguay.
If you are one that ends up marrying someone of the latin race please keep in mind their strong affection for family and respect that by being respectable towards them. Should be easy since they are generally as I said a warm people would then see as truely part of family.
Other more common traits with the latinos can be how they are more comfortable with taking louder, exaggerated gestures and lots physical contact between each other, which contributes to their “fire” persona.
So we go back to their music, I say that the music is a great representation and reflection as a latin culture as a whole which tend to be warm and upbeat in nature mixed in other types and common traits like modesty for example.
For the last 5 years I have been living in South America with my family and of course I had to learn Spanish from scratch, which is easier than you think, since you constantly are practicing it everyday as you hang out with the local people who don’t know english and eventually make friends with some of them. Now to this spanish comes natural to me, for instance I can think and dream in spanish almost everyday.
But what about you guys? Ever thought of learning spanish yourself? Take a look around you, in the last few years you notice the spanish speaking culture has been making it’s presence in the mainstream media and the way of everyday life more so than ever. Some aspects more obvious than others like reggaeton trend in mtv being set in with others like hip hop and crunk.
Main Reasons to learn Spanish today.
1.The women: Yea why not talk to them in their native language? It shows compassion for them as you speak to them or at least try too. By doing this you should win a couple of points in their books if you when converse in spanish instead of english. Works well on other women since they will see you as intelligent and cultured.
2.As goodwill: Since the ever growing number of latinos are making an impact in the US culture as a whole wouldn’t it be nice to at least get use to it and learn spanish so you won’t see as more close minded to other cultures.
3.Opportunities: Do you have some business of some kind? Want to expand? Well why not learn spanish to better the opportunity to serve your clients and get more offerings not from the just english speakers businessmen but other prestigious spanish speaking ones as well.
4.Better communication: Can range from wanting to know what they are singing about in those reggeaton songs or in overseas travels when you could be lost and the only one to help you and give you directions only speaks spanish? Or want something specifically done to your hair when you get it cut during your vacation in Cancun. Yes, a lack of communication with the last one can have its unwanted results.
So just learning spanish can be fun and more easier than you think since alot of the words can be similar. Hell it even improves your understanding of english also!
Example, the simple Spanish word for wrong is “equivocar” but there is word in English that not many would understand which is equivocal, that can define as “of doubtful nature or character; questionable; dubious; suspicious: aliens of equivocal loyalty.”
One can just put two and two together.
Now obviously since you are reading this, you are fluent in english but as a native speaker you fail to realize the complex language that it really is until you move to another country in south america and have no choice but to learn spanish. At first I was thinking how would I be able to master a language? It must take at least 2 years to be speak fluently, but that wasn’t the case it only took me about 6 months.
Now do one thing, I know you must at least one person where english is his second language. Now you should do is put yourself in his head and how he must of felt when he was just starting out, the difficulties he must endure when trying to scramble for the words instead from his head to spit out the next phrase which would come out understandable or just plain crap that was makes heads turn and then say “what?” You might think that they have it tough which is true. But if you consider learning spanish he here is a short list on how it would be easier for you than the other way around.
Advantages for learning spanish:
1.Words are spelt as how they sound
The main one, one new to english would think that the words “done” and “tone” would rhyme but then they would be corrected soon afterwards, english is infamous for having many separate worlds of the same being read and said out loud very differently. But in spanish every word is spelt out how it would sound said out loud don’t you think that makes a hell of alot more sense?
2.Less confusing letter combos
You those “th” and “ph” we have floating around there, well those are them letter combos that would confuse the common foreign getting to know english and english has quite enough of those I think we should take up spanish example and limit those letter combos. I mean some of them are pretty useless, can’t we just spell out telephone as telefone? Never see a problem like that in spanish.
3.More common word structure endings
Ever read the spanish text? Doesn’t look intimidating since most of the words end with “o” or “a” This is what spanish gives a personality for me with the certain sounding of words and spelling combos that I see very uniform and easy to follow but on the other hand you get words in english like “shin,” hmm sounds chinese to me.
4.Less rule breaking
You know those little pointless rules we have to absorb due to the history of the language such as the plural of deer is not deers but just… deer, however for one than more of beer it would be beers. Huh? Thank god for spanish were I didn’t have to deal with that the fraction of the time I would have to deal if the situation was vice verse and I was learning the ropes of english.
