About Language

I recently realized that my homesickness has reached a new height. In a recent LEO-discussion an energetic lady told off the various bickering participants like toddlers. She claimed that a certain word difference is “gehupft wie gesprungen.” An even more gruesome example of my homesickness would be feeling whinesome reading a citation of “Pippi in den Augen” on spiegel.de ... (insert vomit smiley here)

Of course, there are funny Spanish words – and then there are funny Chilean ways of saying things. As a token of affection or nicety, everyone is saying things such as “chicitito” or "chicillos" (instead of chico), “besito” (instead of beso), “sopita” (instead of sopa) and so on. This excessive use of diminutives can lead to funny moments, such as when a vendor, selling quite an enormous backpack, asked her co-vendor for a “bolsita grande” (a big tiny-bag).

Nevertheless, I seem to be making progress on my Spanish. Firstly, I was told by several people that they thought I was Brasilian – “you sound like Brasilians when they try to speak Spanish” I(note the “try to speak” part). At another occasion there was musing that I were having a French accent. (I can assure this is not true, regrettably or not). Like most (I'm tempted to say "every true") Germans, I seem to be happy about having almost any other accent as long as it is not a German one. Is the implication of this (still) a wish to pass as a non-German? I was talking to an American in the hostel in Santiago, and funnily enough, he did not even ask but wanted to know whether I came directly from France to Santiago. It was a very short conversation I admit. I find the backpacker scene tiring now. Hey I´m a surfing Uruguayan – hey I´m a hip girl from Vermont, “you know, (close to) Boston and New York…” (yeah sure) – Hey, I´m an Californian skiing teacher. My thought for the day: I used to think Obama would be assassinated by the Religious Right. Now I think Obama IS the Religious Right.
Ehm.
did I miss something that happened in Gringo-land?


But then I watched a movie and the credits said, a guy on the team, gaffer or something, was called “Gonzalo Palta” (Palta meaning Avocado), and that made me think of ALF and I was happy. No problemo!