Fridays are good days. I only have two classes and then I'm done. In my 10th grade class I learned more than the kids did, and I was way okay with that. ;) During an activity a kid asked me how to say "aupar" in English. I looked at the teacher I teach the class with with a quizical look, and she answered "to lift up" without a second thought. I continued looking at her, now even more confused, wondering how such a verb could not be in my mental Spanish dictionary. The teacher smiled at me and quickly said, "Well, yes, you can use "levantar" in this situation, but in Spanish we have a verb that specifically means 'to lift up a person,' which is the verb 'aupar.'" Seriously! It's a real word! Haha! How cool is that!?! So, if you need to say, "Can you lift that little kid up?" or "Can you give me a lift? I need to jump the fence!" you use the verb "aupar." Sweet.
The teacher, who is also the French and German teacher of the school and really isn't that much older than me, went on to linguistically nerd out with me while the kids finished their activity in their book. She told me about how each langauge has its own focus. In English, we're really concerned with how something happened - we have a lot of prepositions and emphazise their use. In Spanish, they're really concerned with the exact time something happened. They have a million tenses and different endings for first person, second person, third person, plurals, etc. depending on when something happened. But in German, the language is extremely concerned with the specifics. A single word in german can contain as much information as a whole sentence or two would be able to convey in English. She said there is one singular word for "I go out to party on the weekdays" and a whole separate word for "I go out to party on the weekends" - WOW! SO COOL!!!
Right before it was time for me to leave, I went to her and asked the difference between "bolso" and "bolsa," figuring the question was pretty inane and it would make me look like a bit of an amature Spanish speaker, but realizing I really, truly didn't know the difference. As soon as I asked her she smiled and said, "Very good question!" I thought she was mocking me, until she gave me her answer: "Bolso with an 'o' is used for your personal handbag or purse. That's it. Bolsa with an 'a' is used for all other bags - shopping bags, carry-on bags, etc. It can also be used when you're talking about the stock market." I mean, there's no reason I should have known that. How crazily specific and awesome. The whole way back to Alcala I kept saying to myself, "Oh! It's my purse! Oh! It's my purse!" to make sure I never forget her mini lesson. :)
All this led me to an idea: what if I post a little "Spanish Corner" to my blog every few days about new words or phrases I learn in Castillian Spanish? Something to toy around with...
Anyway, by the time I headed home, it had become pretty clear that I was developing a cold and I was all sniffles. Five hours of class didn't help, either. I came right home and played around on the computer before conking out. :)
XOXO
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