Learning Spanish - The Corn Flakes Method

I have been meaning to write this post for quite some time in order to put into perspective what I think it takes to really acquire a foreign language and in this case Spanish. So, I am about to give you my two cents worth and hope that I am not putting my foot in my mouth at the same time. There are some things that we need to take into consideration. In order to learn a foreign language well, one must invest a lot of energy using good study methods and good study materials in a consistent manner over a long period of time. In order to do this, one must take personal responsibility for their success and control the learning process. Studying a language with a teacher is a passive mode, where one expects the teacher to control the process and somehow impart the language to you. The same thing applies to structured courses that are offered in various modes from on-line Internet "podcast" programs to commercial learning products sold in sets of CD's or DVD's. A good teacher or program may inspire you or provide you with external structure and discipline, but if you are a sufficiently serious and a mature student, you are better off teaching yourself a language than enrolling in a course. In this day and age, good study materials and habits are much better resources than living teachers for obtaining a foundation in foreign languages. After all, you are not looking for a "grade" on this effort nor a "gold star" nor a "certificate of achievement". You are looking to learn a foreign language to a comfortable and useful degree and to do this you "really gotta wanna".

Like many things in life learning a language boils down to a "numbers game" so let's look at some of the numbers. Based upon experience I can tell you that to learn a foreign language to a comfortable and useful degree you need to acquire a working vocabulary in the range of around 12,000 to 15, 000 vocabulary words. Just for the sake of discussion let's choose the lower end of the range at 12,000. How much time do you think it will take you to learn 12,000 words really well? Let's go one step further for the sake of easy arithmetic and say that you intend to take Sundays and holidays off and study only 300 days per year. Well, if you only learn one new word per day it would take you 40 years. Okay, then let's move it up to learning ten new words per day. Ten words per day times three hundred days is three thousand words per year. At that rate it would only take you four years. That is a realistic goal but it is also a difficult one. Remember, you have to learn ten new words every day...day in and day out except Sundays and holidays, and learn them really well. During that same time period you will also need to learn how to conjugate the verbs, learn sentence structure and grammar, learn idiomatic expressions, and various regional and slang variations, etcetera. Suddenly that four year time frame that looked reasonable in terms of picking up the vocabulary is starting to look a little ambitious in terms of learning the language. Let me break it to you gently. To learn a language to the extent that you can wear it like an old comfortable sweater can take eight to ten years or more. However, this shouldn't discourage you if you have a real desire but rather it should give you a better perspective and a realistic idea about how much effort that you will need to invest to reap rewards on a timely basis. The upside is that as you progress you will gain the benefit of greater confidence and ease in social settings and feel more and more like an "insider".

Now it is time for a disclaimer. I am not an "expert" in Spanish nor am I qualified as a language teacher. I consider myself a perpetual student but having said that I have definitely achieved a certain comfort and confidence level in Spanish and I would like to give some advice to others who are attempting to do the same. I started studying Spanish in earnest at the age of 52 about three months before I moved permanently to Mexico. Ten years have passed and I now feel bold enough to be writing this. I started out by making 1000 flash cards using a Spanish word frequency list such as the type you can find on "Wiktionary". Click on this link to find the most frequent 1000 words in Spanish. For the average person it takes from 15 to 17 repeat exposures to a new word in order to put it in long term memory and I have found that the most efficient way to do this is with flash cards. I can already here someone saying "Oh no, flashcards are not for me". Well, that's okay but then I suggest that you stop reading here and if you have a better way then use it. I am writing this for people who have an open mind and really want to learn Spanish.

In order to begin the flash card method of acquiring basic vocabulary I needed a system to make and handle the flashcards. As a result I developed the corn flakes method. First you buy a box of corn flakes and eat the flakes. Then you make a tray about 1-1/2" to 2" deep out of the bottom of the box as shown in the picture below. From the rest of the corn flakes box you fashion a cover for your tray. To make the flash cards you will need at least three packets of 3" x 5" plain index cards with no lines. Cut the index cards into thirds and you will have nine hundred flash cards. These will fit in the corn flakes box tray nice and loose. Later on you might want to pack them in more tightly to get a thousand cards in each tray. You will also need a cheap spiral notebook. You start by noting each word in the notebook and looking it up in a Spanish/English dictionary and writing down a simple definition. Some words have multiple meanings but for now you just need to plug the word into your memory. More details can be added later. When you have a notebook page filled, transfer the words to the flash cards. In the act of writing the words down in the notebook, looking them up, and writing them again on the flash cards you have already taken a big step in committing them to memory. I suggest that you put the English word in black on one side of the flashcard and the one or two word definition in another color such as green on the other side. Also write on the flash cards so that you can flip them over easily without having to turn them end for end in order to read the word or definition. As you begin to study them you can look at the flash cards one at a time and flip them over to see if you got the word right. If you guessed wrong put the flash card at the back and if you guessed right leave it in the front. You can make a different colored divider card to separate the words that you know from the ones that you don't. As you advance in the tray you can go back from time to time to review and repeat the process.

I stopped needing the corn flakes trays when I filled up nine trays with about a thousand flash cards in each tray. This took me about two years. After that I found that vocabulary was much easier to acquire because I was well into using the language and repetitions of the new words became part of my daily speech. I also found that I was no longer limited to a Spanish/English dictionary and could understand definitions in a regular Spanish dictionary. Speaking of dictionaries, be careful that you buy a good Spanish/English dictionary that is oriented towards Mexican Spanish and not the Spanish used in Spain or other Spanish speaking countries. Many Spanish/English dictionaries are published in England for English tourists who take their vacations in Spain. Believe me, this type of dictionary will hurt you more than it will help. I like the Larousse Standard English/Spanish Dictionary, Mexican edition, ISBN 970-607-993-9. You can see a picture of my battered copy below.

At the same time that I started studying my flash cards I started learning how to conjugate verbs. There is a book that helped me very much. It is called "501 Spanish Verbs by Christopher Kendris, ISBN 0-8120-9282-1. I also made flash cards to study the verbs but these flash cards were a little different. One thing about the verbs. You need to learn them well but don't be surprised if it takes you many years to have the correct verb conjugation come out of your mouth effortlessly. The verbs are complicated but not overly so unless you make them that way. There are 14 tenses, seven of which are "simple" and seven of which are "compound". You don't need to learn all of the tenses, at least right away. Some of them are hardly ever used anyway except by high school Spanish teachers who use them to try to impress each other. To begin with, learn the present indicative, perfect indicative, imperfect indicative, preterit, future, and simple potential and for the time being just "wing it" with the rest of them. I still struggle with some of them like the "pluscuamperfecto de subjnctivo". My advice...forget about that one unless you intend to teach Spanish.

Well, there you have it, a good beginning. I have a lot more to say about the subject and I will do so in future posts. In the meantime start eating those corn flakes and start studying.

Did you ever wonder?

Baby, if you've ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I'm living on the air in Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, WKRP

WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–1982) was one of my favorite TV shows. I loved watching the antics of Andy Travis (Gary Sandy), Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump), Les Nessman (Richard Sanders), Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman), Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner), Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid), Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers), and Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson). What red blooded American male could ever forget Loni Anderson? Hmmm, it just occurred to me that even though I remember the show as if it just ended yesterday, some of the people who read this blog may have been in diapers when it ended over a quarter of a century ago. Of course there were reruns and an attempt to bring the show back to life in 1991 but it was never the same. Just like all nice things that have a good run they burst onto the scene and capture our fancy for awhile and then they fade into memory. So, I am taking the liberty of changing the WKRP song a little bit to fit my own situation:

Baby, if you've ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I'm living on calabacitas in Mexico,
'Cause thin is what I really want to be.

I have rediscovered zuchini in the form of calabacita. Actually, except for some minor varietal differences, they are one and the same. The Italian word "zucca" means pumpkin or squash and a "zuccchine" or "zucchini" is a little squash just like the Spanish word "calabaza" means pumpkin or squash and "calabacita" means little squash. Actually zucchini is native to Mexico. The species is "Cucurbita pepo" and includes various varieties such as spaghetti squash, yellow crookneck squash and yellow summer squash. These are all referred to as "summer squashes" and are a subset of squashes that are harvested when immature and the rind is still tender and edible. That is one of the marvelous things about calabacita. You don't have to cook it and if you do cook it there are many ways to do so. For people like me who are on a perpetual diet it literally is a Godsend. The calabacita is ninety-five percent water and yet it contains contains useful amounts of potassium, folate, vitamin "A", and manganese. Almost all of the nutrients, however, are contained in the skin so that's why you should always leave the skin on.

Calabacitas can be steamed, fried, roasted, deep fried in batter, chopped into salads, and even made into cookies and bread. I'll bet my Ma knew a hundred ways to cook zucchini. She would always plant too many zucchini plants and then try to figure out a way to use all the zucchini without throwing any away. She gave away away all that she could until people would see my Ma coming with an armful of zucchini and duck back into their houses and hide behind the curtains. At one point in my youth I was actually afraid that I might turn green from eating so much zucchini. I wish my Ma were still alive though. I would eat all the zucchini or calabacita that she could grow. I have even come to enjoy another part of the calabacita plant that I don't think my Ma ever used. The flowers are edible and they are wonderful in things like soup (Sopa de Flor de Calabaza) and quesadillas (Quesadillas de Flor de Calabaza). When I first encountered this I thought it was very wasteful to just use the flower and not wait for the calabacita to mature but then I learned what a dummy I was.

The plant has two types of flowers, male and female. The female flower is a golden blossom on the end of each emergent zucchini. The male flower grows directly on the stem of the zucchini plant on a long stalk where the leaf petiole meets stem and is slightly smaller than the female. There are about four male flowers to every female flower. How about those odds ladies? Right after the female flower is fertilized (with the help of bees) the base of the flower begins to swell and becomes the calabacita and the flower fades. The male flowers stay open longer and so you can easily tell which are the male flowers. These you can pick without hurting the calabacitas which have begun to form. You can use the male flowers (after removing the stamens) in your soups and quesadillas while you are waiting for the little baby squash to grow. My advice is to pick the calabacitas while they are still small because that is when they taste the best. You can eat all you want because one cup of calabacita contains only about thirty calories...and you won't turn green either. I never did and "Ya está la calabaza" (That's the end of that!).

Mi Amigo Pancho

When I was a young lad growing up in Chicago in the 1950's it was the dawn of television but the television in those days didn't get up at dawn. If you turned it on at dawn most likely all that you would see is a test pattern because the folks at the TV station didn't really get into gear until about eight o'clock. In those days quite a few people still listened to the radio when they got up and while they ate breakfast and got ready to go to work. In our house we were usually tuned in to WGN, Radio 720, and the morning farm report and then and the Eddie Hubbard Show which began in 1956. In 1958 "Flying Officer Leonard Baldy" joined the program and gave us the first traffic reports by helicopter. Later on Wally Phillips replaced Eddie Hubbard and "Eye in the Sky" Officer Irv Hayden replaced Leonard Baldy who died in a fiery helicopter crash. Sadly, Irv Hayden was to suffer the same fate years later. The station was very popular with farmers and there were a couple of farm reporters named Orion Samuelson and Max Armstrong who were everyone's favorites.

Ahhh, those really were the good old days, but that was then and this is now and I live in Mexico. Even the fifty thousand watts of WGN's clear channel radio can't reach me here. However, one of the best things about Mexico is that it is still a little bit old fashioned and there is still some old-timey radio. In Irapuato we have station XEWE which the people call "Doble-U-E" (DOH-bleh-OO-EH) or which simply stands for the letters "W" and "E". It's nickname is "La Estación Familiar" or "The Family Station" and it can be found at 1420 on your AM radio dial (if you are lucky like me). They broadcast a variety of programs to suit everything and everybody at 10,000 watts. They begin each day with a very early morning show called "My Amigo Pancho" and as the day progresses they cover everything including news, political forums, radio plays, and music. My wife Gina has it on all the time when she is working in the kitchen, or ironing clothes, or just relaxing with the day's newspaper. It is our "go to" station. We have a choice of many other stations but for us XEWE is home.

I wake up to the program "My Amigo Pancho" every morning. It reminds me so much of the WGN Wally Phillips Show that it is uncanny. It is like the spirit of Wally Phillips learned to speak Spanish, followed me down to Irapuato, and lives in a little plastic box on the nightstand beside my bed. The program "My Amigo Pancho" was started many years ago by a man named Francisco Sanchez even before Wally Phillips began his career. At that time Irapuato was a small agricultural center surrounded by many ex-haciendas, ejidos, farms, and ranchitos. Far flung people would communicate through Mi Amigo Pancho. They would call in and say "Pancho, this is María del Carmen Pérez in Rancho Grande. My daughter Fátima just had her first child and it is a boy. I want my family in Lo de Juárez to know about it". Then Pancho would say congratulations and something else appropriate and take another call. The next person might ask him to play a special song in honor of their father's saint's day, etcetera. Some people would just call in to say hello and others might have a question that perhaps someone else could call in and answer. Francisco Sanchez did this show day in and day out from five to seven in the morning until he died. His place was taken in 1989 by a friend of his named Alejandro Blancarte who is every bit as good and the program is still going strong. I imagine that someday this too will pass away but while it still exists I enjoy it immensely. It is a reminder that deep down people are the same everywhere and that basically we all have the same need to belong.

One of my favorite songs of all time is about radio. As a matter of fact the title is "Turn your Radio On". It was originally written by a man named Albert Edward Brumley but there are several versions of it. My favorite version is by Ray Stevens:

Well come and listen into a radio station
Where the mighty hosts of heaven sing
Turn your radio on
Turn your radio on
If you wanna feel those good vibrations
Coming from the joy that His love can bring
Turn your radio on
Turn your radio on

Turn your radio on
And listen to the music in the air
Turn your radio on
And glory share
Turn your lights down low
And listen to the master's radio
Get in touch with God
Turn your radio on

A don't you know that everybody is a radio receiver
All you gotta do is listen for the call
Turn your radio on
Turn your radio on
If you listen in you will be a believer
Leanin' on the truth that will never fall
Get in touch with God
Turn your radio on

At Home on the 20th Parallel

I have been reading quite a bit about the Mexican state of Yucatan and in particular about the city of Mérida. The people who live in Mérida seem to be very fond of the place and I was wondering about the differences and similarities between Mérida and Irapuato. Perhaps I should just go visit Mérida and find out but the trouble is that Mérida is one of those out of the way places that you just about can't get to from here. I took a look at a map of Mexico to see what Mérida and Irapuato might have in common and lo and behold something jumped right out at me. I had always thought of Mérida as being south of us but the truth is that because Mexico curves back on itself down at the bottom the city of Mérida is due east of Irapuato on the 20th Parallel. As a matter of fact I discovered that most of the cities in Mexico with a concentration of Americans and Canadians are strung out along the 20th Parallel. It's like a club...the "20th Parallel Club".

Puerto Vallarta 20° 37" 0'
Guadalajara 20° 40" 0'
Lake Chapala 20° 13" 33'
Irapuato 20° 41" 1'
San Miguel de Allende 20° 56" 24'
Querétaro 20° 36" 0'
Mérida 20° 58" 0'

For those people who live in:

Veracruz 19° 12" 0
Puebla 19° 3" 0'
Mexico City 19° 26" 3'
Morelia 19° 42" 0'
Pátzcuaro 19° 31" 0'
Melaque 19° 12" 0'

Sorry folks, 20 is where we draw the line. "Youse guys" are part of the 19th Parallel crowd.

Hey Veracruz and Melaque. You are both at exactly 19° 12" 0' latitude on opposite coasts. You people could form a club of your own...the "Ends of the Line Club".

For a great fun map of Mexico check this out:
http://www.baja.com/maproom/pegoraro/

.

Happy 4th of July!

This is one of my favorite poems from childhood and it remains so today. It was one of my mother's favorite poems also. We used to recite together on the 4th of July even if we had to do it by telephone. In my heart I am reciting it with her today, connected not by telephone, but by the Holy Spirit. Have a happy 4th, Ma!

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State;
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace,
March of a strong land's swift increase:
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverent awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong,
To ward her people from foreign wrong;
Pride and glory and honor, all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

(Henry Holcomb Bennett)

My First Trip to Mexico

In 1996 I made my first trip to Mexico. It was a business trip and because I had recently been in the hospital and since my doctor advised me not to fly I took an Amtrak train called the "Eagle" from Chicago to San Antonio, Texas, and then a Greyhound bus to McAllen. In McAllen, a Mexican friend of mine named Federico met me in McAllen and drove me down to Monterrey. The following is a little report that I made on my trip. I am including it here on this blog because I just came across it in an old computer file and I am afraid that I will lose it again if I don't entrust it to Google.

The trip began well enough. A friend drove me to Chicago's Union Station on Friday, October 11th and we arrived there in plenty of time. My train was scheduled to leave at 6:30pm from Gate "D", Track 21 on the south concourse. It actually got away at 6:37 which isn't bad at all. Prior to departure, however, we were all huddled in a rather close and shabby waiting room and before the train was even called there was a semi-stampede to line up at the gate. A security man came by to warn everyone about pick-pockets and to keep a close eye on their belongings. He said that not all the people in line were there to take the train and some had other things in mind. This gave me an uneasy feeling to say the least and I quickly moved my wallet to an inside pocket. I began to wonder that if they knew about this problem and it was serious then why didn't they do something more positive about it like catch all the crooks and throw them in jail.

Since I had made reservations for "Deluxe" accommodations I waited for the herd to clear the gate and made my way to car number 2130, a bi-level sleeper. I climbed the narrow twisting stairwell to compartment "B" which was to be my home for the next 30 hours or so. It was at this point that I became somewhat disenchanted. It wasn't long after I got settled in that I experienced a mental flashback to my early youth. It was the time that I had put my pet frog in a shoe box and carted his sorry butt around all day in the back of a coaster wagon. I guess I finally understand the old saying, "what goes around, comes around".

We pulled out of the station and through the south Chicago Loop over the remnants of the old "River of Steel", past the ghosts of Dearborn Station, and over the various and sundry criss-cross of rails on our way to Joliet. The car attendant made what sounded like a humorous speech over the PA system but I couldn't understand most of it on account the sound quality was so bad. I looked around my cubbyhole to take stock and see what the $914 dollar round trip fare had bought. Well, to name a few things, it bought me an empty paper cup dispenser, an empty toilet paper roll, and a full trash bin. I guess that's to be expected these days no matter where you go or how you get there. As we headed roughly south by west I just sat there through the bump and grind, bump and grind, rock and roll, clickety-clack, boom-boom, ka-chunk, thump-thump, bang-bang, etcetera and wondered to myself, "What have I done?".

It took me awhile to get over my initial disappointment. At first I felt like a marble in an empty tin can and I thought to myself that if this was "Deluxe" accommodations then the least that they could do would be to use a lower case "d" in Deluxe. I tried to imagine what the design engineer of my compartment might have been like. I imagined a cheerful guy with a flat top haircut, horn rim glasses, pipe, short sleeve white shirt with skinny black tie, plastic pocket protector full of pens and pencils, slide rule by his side, black pants, white socks, and penny loafers. I pictured him as an avid reader of Mechanics' Illustrated and I'm sure that in 1959 or whenever he designed it my compartment represented his vision of the future. Well, the future is here in that respect but I'm afraid that his vision of it didn't match up with my expectations on a timely basis. I won't go into picky details, after all this was supposed to be an adventure and as it turned out an adventure it surely was.

Well, as you can tell in the beginning I was pretty negative and I was beginning to think that maybe the Texas Eagle was about ready for Jack Kevorkian. Fortunately, things got a little better at dinner time. I made the 7:30pm seating in the dining car and was seated with three other total strangers but we all quickly became friends. That's the best thing that I can say about long distance travel by train. It is more of a "voyage" than a trip. After dinner which I would rate about a "5" or a "6" on a scale form 1 to 10 I made my way back to my compartment. I must add at this time that all of the Amtrak employees that I encountered on the train were very professional and friendly and always helpful. I sat for awhile collecting my thoughts and stared out the window at the traffic on Interstate 55 which paralleled the tracks and about 10:pm I decided to call it a day and turn in. I wrestled with the bed for awhile and then gave up and asked the attendant to help me which he promptly did.

I didn't think that I would fall asleep at all the way we were being knocked about. Up till now the only way to move around was to stagger like a drunken sailor. As I relaxed a bit sleep finally overcame the struggle until about midnight as the train began to slow down for St. Louis. I woke up in time to see the St. Louis Arch appear phantom-like out of the gloom as we slid around the back side of Busch Stadium and up to the prefabricated metal shack that St. Louis Amtrak calls home. We dropped off a few of our newly made friends and took on a few new strangers and we soon slipped out of town into the night south by southwest steady as she goes...

On Saturday morning I awoke shortly after 6:am feeling curiously refreshed and some of my discomfort and apprehension about the trip began to fade. I was actually starting to enjoy myself a little bit, especially when we hit Little Rock, Arkansas. As we approached North Little Rock it was like being in freight car and locomotive heaven. We went right past the hump yard and I saw every imaginable type of freight car and at least one of each of just about every kind of locomotive on the Union Pacific roster. It was quite a sight. The only trouble was that it passed by too quickly and we were once again plodding through the Arkansas countryside. About 10:am or so we passed through Hope, Arkansas and everyone rushed to the left hand side of the train to get a good look at you-know-who's boyhood home. It's a wonder that the poor train didn't tip over. I guess that made us all honorary friends of Bill. One can only hope that Bill is truly a friend of ours.

About 11:am as we approached Texarkana I began to notice a very sharp contrast between the rail traffic that I was used to seeing in the Midwest and the traffic that I saw in and around East Texas. Back home the traffic is heavy into grain cars, paper cars, coal cars, auto parts cars, automobile rack cars, and trailer and container-on-flat cars.. Around Texarkana there are mainly two types of cars, tank cars, and plastic pellet cars. Oh yes, there are a few lumber cars also but not as many as the other two types I mentioned. The whole area seems to revolve around the petroleum and plastics industries.

At lunch there was another pleasant interlude in the dining car and I can't tell you much about what happened right after that because I took a little snooze. I awoke again about 2:30pm as we were stopped in a little town called Mineola. The train stopped right in the middle of a street fair. All sorts of people were milling about and looking like they were having fun. I wished that I could get off the train and join them. As we approached Dallas (25 minutes early) I stood with my head out in the corridor to hear what the attendant was trying to say on the intercom. Apparently there was this lady named "Pinky" who for years and years would come out and wave every time a train would pass. She died a few years ago but her daughter, also named Pinky, adopted her mother's tradition and supposedly waved at all the trains from then on. The attendant had us in suspense as we approached Pinky's pink little house but as it flashed by we discovered that, alas, Pinky was a no-show. So much for tradition. Dallas turned out to be a non-event. We parked in front of the almost deserted station for about a half an hour and as we got underway again the dining car steward came by to take reservations for the dinner seating. "Hey Buddy", I told him, "Put me down for the six o'clock. By then I'll be hungry enough to eat the locomotive!".

We only went a short way and then had to stop again to give Fort Worth equal time. I figured that at this rate we'd never get to San Antonio. We backed into the Fort Worth station which took some jockeying around. I did get a chance to wave at some railfans. You could tell they were railfans quite easily. They were sunburned and stooped over from carrying all that camera and video equipment...that and their silly grins. I hope they got a picture of my train because I hadn't had a chance to get one yet. At one point I asked the car attendant if I could have a list of the "consist" including built dates and other particulars. You would have thought that I had asked for the secret formula for Coca-Cola or something. He said that he had been working the train for 13 years and to his recollection he had never been given that information. Somehow I believed him. The train shed at Fort Worth wasn't much to look at. Just some wooden posts with "Y" style cross arms between the tracks with pitched gable roofs made from corrugated tin. Pretty shabby looking to say the least, especially the parts that were covered with pigeon guano. This was mainly on the water and electric pipes that hung from the rafters. In a bi-level you get a birds' eye view. We pulled out of Fort Worth about 5:pm on the last and final leg of the outbound journey. It was time to start remembering the Alamo.

About 5:30 we passed through Cleburne and I thought back to the many times that I had visited the Cleburne Shops of the Santa Fe Railroad. Those days are long gone now and fading fast from memory. I still remember two important things about Cleburne though, nice town and nice people. We made a short stop at McGregor, Texas about 6:50 to let somebody off and then headed due south with a beautiful sunset on our right hand side. No sooner had we gotten under way again we slowed down and stopped at Temple, Texas for about 20 minutes. This was definitely not an express train. I imagined that a slow boat to China might be a little faster. I decided that there was nothing I could do but go with the flow and took another snooze. As I was drifting off to dreamland to the muffled sound of the diesel horn. It seemed to me like the engineer blew the horn an awful lot. I had always thought that two longs, a short, and another long meant an approaching crossing. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to his (or her) horn blowing though. It seemed almost random. I don't know...maybe it was just because the engineer was horny.

About 11:30pm an announcement was made that we were approaching San Antonio, our final destination. A hush of anticipation descended on the passengers who searched about to gather their personal belongings (and maybe some of Amtrak's too). The engineer teased us as the train slowly picked its way through the outskirts of town at a snail's pace. Finally, at the appointed time we pulled up to the station. The door opened and the herd spilled out into the night air and marched down the track to the quaint old station building like ants at a picnic. It seemed more like a "happening" than the end of a journey. I finally got a chance to see the entire train and it posed for me in all its glory with the reflected lights of the street lamps gleaming off the sleek shiny cars like beams of light from the crown jewels. It reminded me of a giant space ship and that is what it really is...a space ship that connects two universes. One universe is called Illinois and the other is called Texas.

My bus trip from San Antonio to McAllen and then the journey by car to Monterrey, Mexico and back are subjects for another story. Suffice to say that the adventures were plentiful and sufficient to fill a good sized notebook. For now I'll just stick to the Amtrak story. My return trip was supposed to depart San Antonio at 7:am on Sunday, October 27th. I arrived in San Antonio the night before and since there was a time change from Daylight Savings time scheduled for 2:am Sunday morning I called Amtrak to check on the schedule. The person that I talked to on the other end didn't seem to know anything about the time change and told me not to worry about it. You guessed it...that's about the time that I began to worry. As expected, I arrived at the station one hour prior to the scheduled departure time of 7:am and found everything in a state of disarray. After much shuffling around the train was finally ready to depart about 8:45. From this I learned that time changes and train schedules are apparently not compatible.

The trip from San Antonio to Dallas was uneventful except that the stops along the way were much shorter in duration in order to make up the time. The equipment was a little newer than the outbound trip and a little more comfortable but only slightly so. We entered a fairly severe storm en route to Dallas but that didn't seem to slow us down much and as darkness fell I made my way to the dining car to make some new friends. As I was eating my dinner it suddenly dawned on me that of all of the people in the dining car there were only three of us who were under sixty years of age and all three of us were pushing fifty. It looked like an AARP get together. So much for the bridge to the future idea.

After another night of bump and grind, bump and grind, clatter, creak, and groan I woke at dawn just in time to see the DeSoto, Missouri Union Pacific freight car repair shop slide by. I knew then that we were nearing St. Louis. After a rather long service stop in St. Louis we were off and running again trying to make up for lost time but by now we were very late. We finally pulled into the Chicago station about 2:15pm which is over an hour late. By then I could hardly wait to get off and this time I was right at the front of the herd and into the first taxi in the line. I had been gone seventeen days all together and it seemed more like a month.

In retrospect what can I say about Amtrak and the Texas Eagle. Well, it was an interesting experience but one which I am not eager to repeat anytime soon. I don't think that Amtrak can keep this thing going much longer without more appeal to mainstream America. If you are a student with limited funds or if you are retired and have plenty of time it can be a nice adventure but if you are a businessman like me or a family with small children I definitely don't recommend it. It turns out that the Amtrak employees are the best thing about Amtrak but it is easy to see that they are struggling against the tide. They really make the difference between the status quo and failure. Isn't that the way it always is though. It's people who make the difference. Let's hope that they can hold on, at least for a little while anyway.

Texas Eagle 2009 update: The Amtrak Texas Eagle is still alive and well and makes twenty-six stops between Chicago and San Antonio, on the 1,308-mile daily segment of its route.

Dialog - Going and Coming

There is a famous movie in Mexico starring Pedro Infante and Luis Aguilar called "A.T.M.- A Toda Máquina" ("At full speed" or "Running flat out"). It came out in 1951 and it is one of the most beloved Mexican movies of all time along with its sequel "Que Te Ha Dado Es Mujer?" with Pedro Infante, Luis Aguilar, and Rosita Arenas. There is a line from "A Toda Máquina" that has entered the language as pop culture that you probably won't find in any textbook and so that's why it helps to watch old movies. You can rent them or you can buy them from Amazon. In this movie the two heroes live in a "vecindario" which is a big old house with a courtyard that is divided into smaller living quarters. It is like a little neighborhood within a neighborhood. This vecindario has a "portera" or doorkeeper (in this case a woman) who controls the comings and goings. The husband of the portera is a "milusos" or "jack-of-all-trades" and he has about seven jobs. He is always coming and going to change his clothes (or uniform) in between jobs. There is a famous exchange between the man and his wife that is repeated every time that he arrives and leaves and it goes like this:

Ya me voy vieja.
I'm going now old woman.
Adios viejo
Goodbye old man.
Ya vine vieja
I've returned old woman.
Qué bueno viejo.
That's good old man.

This exchange of phrases became a cultural icon and has been used ever since in one form or another especially by older generations.

Now let's join our favorite couple and see what today's "voy y vengo" is all about:

Voy y vengo, viejo.
I'm going and coming old man.

¿Adonde vas mi amor?
Where are you going my love?

Voy de pisa y corre a la tienda.
I'm just going to pop over to the store.

¿Para qué?
What for?

Voy a comprar un litro leche nada más. Necesito hacer gelatina para la fiesta mañana. No me tardo. Ahorita vengo.
I'm just going to buy a liter milk. I need to make jello for the party tomorrow. I won't be long. I'll be right back.

Bueno. Entonces cuídate mucho mi amor.
Okay, then be very careful my love.

OK Papi. No te preocupes. Bai-bai.
Okay sweetie, don't worry. Bye-bye.

(Una hora después)
(One hour later)

¡Ya vine viejo! ¡Ya me voy viejo!
I've returned old man! Now I'm going old man!

Oye, espérame tantito. ¿Que pasó? Me dijiste que tu no te ibas a tardar y estuviste más de una hora afuera de la casa. ¿Donde fuiste?
Hey, wait a minute. What happened? You told me that you weren't going to be long and you've been away from the house more than an hour. Where did you go?

Fui a la tienda como te dije pero ¿qué creas? Me encontré con mi amiga Mirna y ella habla por los codos de la política y cuando ella empieza a hablar, no hay quien la pare!
I went to the store like I told you but guess what. I ran into my friend Mirna and she talked and talked about the political situation and when she starts to talk no one can stop her.

¡Ay qué Mirna! ¿Ahora a donde vas?
Oh that Mirna! Now where are you going?

Voy un ratito a la casa de mis padres para recoger un molde para la gelatina. No me tardo.
I'm going for a little bit to my parent's house to pick up a mold for the jello. I won't be long.

Haz me un favor mi amor. No me importa si tardes o no pero quiero que regreses en buen tiempo para preparar mi comida, por favor.
Do me a favor, my love. I don't care if you are gone long or not but I want you to please return in time to make my dinner.

No te apures viejo. Todo estará bien.
Don't fret about it old man. Everything will be fine.

Notes:

Voy y vengo - This is pronounced something like "Boy y BEHNG-oh" only it is pronouunced without aspirating the "b". Many English speakers are taught that the letter b" and the letter "v" are pronounced the same in Mexican Spanish. However, that is not true. When pronouncing the letter "b" in both Spanish and English the lips are closed and a little bit of air pressure is built up behing the lips and when the lips are opened there is a puff of air that accompanies the sound of the "b". With the English letter "v" the top of the bottom lip is curled back to touch the top teeth and a vibrating sound is made with the lips open. When pronouncing the Mexican Spansih "v" the same process is used as with the letter "b" except that the lips remain slightly open and there is no build up and subsequent release of air or in other words there is no big "puff" of air. In reality this is a very subtle difference but it is noticeable. Even so, when spelling things out, Mexican speakers will often differentiate between the "b" and the "v" by saying "beh grande" or "beh larga" for the letter "b" and by saying "u-veh" (oo-veh) or "veh corta" for the letter "v". Try practicing the English and Spanish b and v and take note of where your lips are in relation to each other and to your teeth.

Voy de pisa y corre - The phrase "de pisa y corre" mean the equivalent of the English "pop over to" or "just run over to" or "just duck into". It comes from the verb "pisar" to tread or to trample, and the verb "correr" to run. "Pisa y corre" is also used as a baseball term meaning "to tag up" or to run after a fly ball is caught".

Voy a comprar - The phrase "Voy a" + an infinitive is a very good construction for beginners to learn. It means "going to" as in "going to do something. If you use "voy a" without an infinitive it means that you are going somewhere as in "Voy a la tienda". If you are traveling to another place you use the reflexive form as in "Me voy a Morelia".

Ahorita vengo. - This phrase means "I'll be right back" but in Mexico it doesn't mean "I'll be right back for sure". Many times it is just used as a place holder and the actual time that elapses between going and coming back can vary quite a bit. In fact, in some cases it means that the person probably won't return. For example, if you are sitting next to someone at a party or a wedding and the conversation gets dull they may say, "Con permiso, ahorita vengo". They are begging your pardon to absent themselves for a moment as if they need to go to the bathroom or they saw a freind that they want to say hello to. In reality, they just want to leave you and don't want to say something awkward. Both parties understand what is happening and it is no big deal. It is just being polite. If someone really means that they will be right back for sure they will often say, "Ahoritita vengo". That means that they positiveley will return.

OK Papi. - The word "Papi (PAH-pee) is a form of Papá (father). It is a term of endearment used by both wives and children.

habla por los codos - When someone "habla por los codos" or "talks by the elbows" it means that they talk and talk non-stop.

My friend Rodney

For those of you who are interested in learning Spanish or studying Spanish further to improve your speaking and comprehension abilities I would like to introduce you to my friend Rodney Prince. Rodney is a fellow Spanish student and he is also a good teacher. He has a blog called "My Spanish Notes" which I highly recommend. You can find it at: http://myspanishnotes.blogspot.com/

I would also like to re-introduce you to my friend Jeremy who has a blog called "Señor Jordan's Spanish Video Blog". Jeremy is not only a student of Spanish but he is also a professional Spanish teacher at the High School level. This guy really knows his stuff! You can find his blog at: http://srjordan.wordpress.com/

Another site that I would like to recommend is "Spanish Experts" at: http://spanishexperts.blogspot.com/

There is one more site that I recently came across that I think would be helpful called "Spanish Phrasal Verbs" that you can find at:
http://spanish-phrasal-verbs.blogspot.com/

I really appreciate these people because I am always looking for ways to improve my knowledge of the Spanish language and I always seem to pick up a thing or two from these blogs. Even if you are fairly fluent you will find that these blogs are a good review and food for thought.

Ahora, ¡Ponte a estudiar! (Now, get to studying!)

Uriangato revisited...

Last September I posted a Spanish Dialog called "Shopping for Clothing" that was inspired by one of our semi-annual visits to the factory outlet clothing stores in the twin cities of Moreleón-Uriangato. Yesterday we went back to Uriangato to buy some clothing for my wife Gina for her birthday which happens to be June 24th, the feast day of San Juan Bautista. We had a wonderful time just like we always do on one of these trips. This time we took the new autopista which is a very scenic drive and it got us there quickly and safely and returned us home the same way. I brought my camera along because you never know what you might run into in Uriangato and this time was no exception.

The first thing that I noticed was a sign over a rack of children's socks that said, "Seven $5". You can see it in the pictures below. Here are some of the possibilities that I thought it meant:

1.) Perhaps it was a corrupted short form of "Se vende" which means "for sale", 5 pesos.

2.) Perhaps it was written in English and meant "Seven pair for five dollars" but that would be very rare indeed in Uriangato.

3.) Perhaps the people who wrote the sign thought that "5" is written "Seven" in English.

Then I saw another sign that said: Seven (Años) Pares - $ 1 - 5 10 - 4.8 100 - 4. I didn't know what to make of thas sign until I started examining the socks and discovered that the brand name for the socks was "SEVEN". The socks were grouped in a variety of sizes and then I figured out that the size was generally determined by the age of the child and so "años" or "years" determined what size sock would probably be required to fit the child. The numbers indicated the discount rate for volume of socks of the same "años". In other words, if you bought one pair the price was 5 pesos each but if you bought five pair of the same "años" the socks were only 4 pesos, 80 centavos each. "Ohhhh", I said to myself, "Now I get it". I think that one of the things that made it a little confusing was that the proprietors of the shop are Korean and speak "Spanglish". It was my odd Spanish lesson for the day.

After we walked a couple kilometers and Gina had bought what she wanted we arrived at the town center and I plopped myself down at a convenient coffee shop and ordered a "café americano bien cargado" (a strong cup of American style coffee) to recharge my batteries and Gina ordered a cappuccino. While we were sitting there I noticed some new sculptures in the "jardín" and so after we finished resting up we went over to check them out and take some photos. Then we noticed that there were some exhibit booths set up from the state of Michoacán and we went over to take a look. We encountered a delightful gentleman named Felipe de Jesús Horta Tera who is a well known regional mask carver from Tocuaro, Michoacán, near Pátzcuaro. We had a very nice chat with him and we also got to know his wife Elia who served us some wonderful sopa tarasca, corundas, and a beef soup/stew like dish called Churipo. The food was out of this world. We also met Raúl Díaz and his wife from Pátzcuaro and sampled some of his sweet delicacies. Check out the photos below. Click on pictures to enlarge.

Dialog - The Rainstorm

I haven't posted a Spanish dialog in quite some time and so I decided that because the rainy season is almost upon us I would do a dialog about rain. Traditionally in Mexico the summer rains start about now and every year people worry that they won't come. The feast day of San Isidro Labrador (Saint Isadore the Farm Worker) is on May 15th and the farmers have finished preparing their land and sowing their crops and they look to San Isidro for help to kick off the rainy season. June 24th is the feast day for San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist) and in the old days in Mexico many people bathed completely only on that day of the year. Often times this was a ritual bathing because San Juan is the patron saint of water. If the rains don't come by The feast day of San Juan it is considered a bad omen indeed because St. John shares the distinction with Jesus and Mary of being the only three individuals whose birthday the Catholic Church celebrates in the liturgical calendar. The feast days of the other saints are the day of their death which is when we celebrate their entry into Heaven. Saint John's birthday also marks the exact halfway point in the year until Christmas. Therefore, if San Juan Bautista, with all those impressive credentials can't make a little rain, then we are all in a heap of trouble.

Now let's join our favorite couple and see what they have to say about rain:

Hola mi amor.
Hello my love.

Hola cariño. ¿Cómo fue tu día en la chamba?
Hello dear. How did your day go at work?

Poquito pesado pero ya pasó y aquí estoy.
A little hectic but now it's over with and here I am.

Que bueno, mi amor. ¿Parece que va a llover? Nuestro jardín está muy seco, le hace falta la lluvia y hace mucho calor. ¿Cuál es el pronóstico del tiempo?
That's great my love. Do you think it's going to rain? Our garden is very dry and lacks rain and it is very hot. What is the weather forecast?

No sé si va a llover o no, pero me siento muy incomodo. Hay bastante humedad y este calor abochorna como el infierno. No me gusta cómo se está poniendo el clima. Supongo que se debe al calentamiento global.
I don't know if it is going to rain or not but I very very uncomfortable. It is really humid and this heat is stifling like hell. I don't like what is happening to the climate. I suppose it is on account of global warming.

A mi tampoco me gusta tanto calor. Ojalá venga la lluvia antes el día de San Juan Bautista.
I don't like this hot either. I sure hope the rain gets here before the day of St. John the Baptist.

¿Por qué? Quieres bañarte? Ja Ja Ja
Why? Do you want to take a bath? Ha Ha Ha

¡Váya hombre! Oye, en este momento sentí una racha fresca.
Get out of here man! Hey, I just felt a cool gust of wind.

Déjame ver. ¡Mira! Hay unos nubarrones a la vista. Parece como que viene la llorona.
Let me see. Look! There are dark clouds on the horizon. It looks like the weeping one is coming.

Quizás va a ser un chubasco. Mejor vamos a mover el mueble del patio dentro de la cochera y cerrar las ventanas en la recamara.
Maybe there is going to be a rain storm. We better move the patio furniture inside the garage and close the bedroom windows.

Bueno. Voy para recoger el mueble y tu cierras las ventanas.
Okay. I will go fetch the furniture and you close the windows.

¡Ay! Relámpago...¡Ay Dios mio! Trueno. Me asustó. Tengo miedo.
Oh! Lightening..Oh my God! Thunder. It scared me. I am afraid.

No te apures mi amor. Córrale y cierra las ventanas. Es un aguacero.
Don't be concerned my love. Run and shut the windows. It's a thunderstorm.

Ya están cerradas las ventanas y que bueno por que ahora está lloviendo a cántaros.
The windows are all closed and it's a good thing because now it is raining pitchers.

Es más, está cayendo granizo.
Not only that but it is hailing.

¿Cuanto tiempo va a llover?
How long is it going to rain?

No mucho. Ya está en punto de pasar.
Not long. Already it is starting to let up.

(Pasan unos minutos)
(A few minutes pass)

¿Todavía está lloviendo?
Is it still raining?

Sí, pero nada más chipi chipi.
Yeah, but it's just drizzling.

Oh, espera, ahora puedo ver el sol.
Oh, wait, now I can see the sun.

¡Mira! Un arco iris.
Look! A rainbow.

¿Cuántos colores tiene el arco iris?
How many colors are there in a rainbow?

Creo que siete.
I believe there are seven.

¿Qué colores son?
What are the colors?

A ver. Son rojo, naranja, amarillo, verde, azul, añil, y violeta.
Let's see. They are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

¡Correcto!
Right!

¿Correcto? Entonces dame un abrazo
Right? Then give me a hug.

Note:

La Llorona - The weeping one is an old legend that goes back hundreds of years in Latin America. There are many versions. The one common thread is that she is the spirit is of a doomed mother who drowned her children and now spends eternity searching for them in rivers and lakes. Sometimes when people see dark rain clouds on the horizon they will say, "Viene la llorona"...the weeping one is coming.

Está lloviendo a cántaros - It's raining pitchers. In English we ususally say "It's raining cats and dogs" but if you say in Spanish "Esta lloviendo gatos y perros" you will get some funny looks.

¿Todavía está lloviendo? - Is it still raining? - Sí, pero nada más chipi chipi. - Yeah, but it's just drizzling. - The prhase "chipi chipi" is an alternate form of "chispeando" or "sparking". People will also sometimes say things like "Los angelitos están regando" which means "The little angels are peeing".

Hey! Just as I was finishing up this dialog some dark clouds formed on the horizon and a storm unfolded exactly like in my dialog and I went to collect the patio furniture and my wife Gina ran to close the bedroom windows. Gee...do you think that I might have the power?