¿Unos mates?

I've recently become friends with an Argentino - a man from Argentina.  He's a really nice guy and he's been teaching me a lot of Spanish as well as some things about Argentina.  In fact, we even went to an Argentinian restaurant, which is the whole reason I'm writing this entrada.

Take a look at the photo below.  Once I saw this, I knew I had to write something about it.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you.  That is a pata de vaca, or cow hoof.  Much to my surprise, this is also a pata de vaca:

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about plants, so let's get back to the more interesting of the two.

Let me show you one more photo.  Why?  I don't know, for some reason I'm fascinated by this thing.

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system I'm ready to move on and explain what cow hooves have to do with Argentina.

So, what do cow hooves have to do with Argentina?  Nothing really.  This pata de vaca is simply a fancy (or creepy) cup for drinking mate.

Argentina is famous for mate.  What is mate you ask?  The simple answer is tea.  But the simple answer isn't good enough for us, so let's get to the real answer, starting with our vaca de pata.

The vaca de pata, while it is rather bizarre looking, is used to drink the tea.  And this is actually what's called mate.  Mate is the name of the "cup" used to drink tea.

Here's a photo of a more traditional mate:

What are mates made of you ask?  OK, maybe you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

Los mates pueden ser de calabaza, alpaca, madera, plata, hueso caña, y también los hay de plástico, vidrio, metal, loza

Mate can be made from pumpkin, pewter, wood, silver, calf bone, and also from plastic, glass, metal, and ceramic

Traditionally mate is made from pumpkins.  I don't know much about that process, but I do know how to search YouTube and I found this video you can watch for a short lesson on como hacer y curar un mate.  Get those Spanish ears ready!

Now that we've established that mate is actually what you drink the tea from, we need to talk about the tea itself, which is called yerba mate.

Yerba mate comes from a tree that looks like this:

When it's ready to be put in your mate it looks something like this:

Brewing yerba mate isn't quite as straight forward as making some good old fashioned Lipton ice tea.  The short version of the story is that the yerba mate goes in the mate, then you add hot water.

I mentioned hot water; luckily Argentinos heat up water the same way we do, by using a pava.

Pava means kettle, as in a tea kettle.  You may also hear it called a tetera.   And yes, pava also means turkey.  Technically when talking about turkeys a pava is a female turkey, and pavo is a male turkey, but we're not here to talk turkey (bad pun, I know).

 My explanation of the mate making process is far from exact, so here's a quick video that explains everything.

OK, so now we know the technical differences between mate and yerba mate.   If you watched the video, you may have noticed that the leaves and the water are mixed together.  It doesn't seem like a very tasty beverage.  You may have also noticed something that looks like this:

It's called a bombilla.  You put the bombilla into the mate.  If you look closely at the bottom of the bombilla (the gold piece), you'll notice several little holes.  The holes are used to filter out the yerba mate leaves leaving you with the wonderful flavor of the tea.

Drinking mate in Argentina is like drinking sweet tea in the south, it's a tradition, virtually a mandate.

When you walk into a friends home in Argentina, the conversation might go something like this:

Hola, ¿unos mates?
Hi, tea?

!Como no!
Of course

¿Dulce o amargo?
Sweet or bitter

Como tomes vos
However you drink it

Don't let the word vos confuse you, it's just another way to say tú.  It's called voseo, and that's a topic for another post.

Well, that's it.  Now you know a little bit about drinking mate.  Oddly enough, despite having been to an Argentinian restaurant and having learned so much about mate, I actually didn't get try any.  They didn't have any for the customers, just their own personal stash.  Go figure.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Ser naco es chido

In Mexico you might see someone wearing a playera (t-shirt) with this image on it.

So what is "naco"?  Urban Dictionary defines naco as:

Naco (fmn. naca) is a pejorative word often used in Mexican Spanish to describe bad-mannered and poorly educated people. A naco is usually associated with lower socio-economic classes, but could also sometimes include the nouveau riche.

 In English you can relate this to being "ghetto", or "poor white trash". More generically, it means you come from the wrong side of the tracks.  The term isn't always used in a negative manner, but you really gotta know when, where, how, and more importantly who you can use it with it.  If you're familiar with the usage of ghetto and poor white trash, you've got a leg up on how the word naco is used and what it represents.  For women, it changes to naca. 

Several definitions for Naco have been posted at Urban Dictionary, it's worthwhile to take the time to read them all.

Now that we've gotten definitions out of the way, what sort of things are considered "naco"?  The video below is going to help us out with that.   Pay close attention, you'll see lots poorly written (mal escrito) signs (letreros) and the classic bathroom graffiti that's really pretty rude but usually makes us laugh anyway.  This footage in this video is from somewhere in Mexico.

I found this video to be pretty entertaining, and is a good test of your Spanish.  Some of the errores (mistakes) in the signs can be a bit tricky to figure out.  It took me a minute on some of them.  But then again, I also had help from my maestra.

Enough talk, here's the video.

Why don't you leave a comment about your favorite letrero in the video?  If there was something you didn't understand, leave a comment and maybe I can help you out.

I almost forgot.  We still need to translate our phrase.

Ser naco es chido
It's cool to be ghetto

You can't talk about being naco without talking about being a fresa, but in this entrada (post), I'm only going to cover naco.  In another post we'll find out what "fresa" is and step a little deeper into the culture of  "naco vs fresa".

Amar Te Duele is a decent movie that place in Mexico and is the classic love story between  two teenagers from different worlds, naco and fresa. Sort of a modern day Romeo and Juilet story.

I hope you enjoyed the video, I got qute a few laughs myself.

Hasta la próxima.

México, Méjico y Mexicas

If you don't know, there are two ways to spell México, with the second way being Méjico.

While I was aware of the difference in spelling, I had no idea why there were 2 spellings, and never really put much thought into it. But thanks to my maestra and Google, the mystery has been unraveled.

The word México is deeply intertwined with the history of the Mexican people, taken from the language of the Nahua Aztec tribe, also known as the Mexicas, who spoke Nahuatl.

In short, the word México comes from the language of the Mexicas (Aztecs), Nahuatl. So now that I've given you a very abbreviated history of the word "México", then where does "Méjico" come from?

Méjico is the spelling given to us by modern day Spanish, although the Real Academia de la Lengua Española does recognize both spellings.

So then the question becomes, which one do I use, or does it even matter?

Mexicans will use México because of the historical and cultural ties, but in Spain the standard is Méjico. Which one you use is up to you. If the Spanish of Spain is going to be your forte, then perhaps going with "Méjico" is your best option.

My explanation here barely scratches the surface of what can be a touchy subject for some people. If you want to know more, here are a few links that might be of interest:

WordReference - México vs Méjico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexica

I hope you enjoyed this brief history lesson.

¡Hasta luego!

¿Me explico? vs ¿Me entiendes?

Today I'm going to ir al grano, or as we say in English, get to the point.

¿Me entiendes?

A really simple Spanish sentence, that means notthing more than "Do you understand (me)? So what's the big deal you ask?

Well, in Spanish this seemingly innocent phrase potentially carries a very negative connotation. As one person put it...

Es como llamarte bruta en tu cara, (Its like calling you ignorant to your face)

Ouch! I know I've used this in the past, and I certainly had no intention of conveying that message!

So then what should we say?

That's where ¿Me explico? comes in. It translates to "Am I explaining myself?", which is considered more polite, or at least by some.

Needless to say, as I was trying to process all of this, I decided I needed a little more expertise, and decided to ask my maestra about this.

Here's what she told me....

Definitivamente te recomiendo que digas "Me explico?" estoy de acuerdo!

"Comprende?" es lo peor que puedes decir! Ademas muchos gringos lo usan de manera racista y para hacerte sentir como un idiota e idiota.

Here's the translation, in case you need it:

I definitely recommend that you say "Me explico?".

"Comprende" is the worst thing you can say. A lot of gringos use this as a racist way of making you feel like an idiot.

Although I never use comprende, I certainly had no idea it might carry a negative connotation. Incredibly this is something textbooks leave out.

So, how did I hear about this? From another very useful blog (Voices en Español), and here's the link:

http://spanish-podcast.com/2009/10/19/the-most-annoying-expression-in-spanish-is/

I also found several other interesting links:

This article is in Spanish, and discusses this topic as well as other annoying phrases
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/participe/2009/10/091012_1053_expresiones.shtml

Another discussion (in English) of this topic
http://www.mexperience.com/blogs/foreignnative/?p=111

An interesting discussion in Yahoo Respuestas (In Spanish)
http://espanol.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070125175531AAIPkNK

Me imagino (I imagine) that some of what is considered annoying or offensive is subjuctive, but it's certainly something to keep in mind, especially as you become more and more proficient in the Spanish language, because when people see that you have a good command of the language, it's very difficult for them to determine whether or not you made a mistake due to language or cultural misunderstandings vs you potentially just being a jerk.

Espero que te sirva (I hope this helps),

Hasta Luego!

Los continentes

Here's a simple question...

How many continents are there? DUH, seven.

I can hear you now...where are you going with this Rodney, and what does it have to do with Spanish? And why you are asking such a silly question?

Well, in the good old US of A we count 7 continents - Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Apparently not everybody in the world shares this theory, including our Spanish speaking friends.

There's the 5 continent theory- África, Antártida, América, Eurasia, and Oceanía.

And then there's the 6 continent theory - Asia, África, Europa, América, Oceanía y la Antártida.

So what's different? América includes both North and South America, and depending on whether you subscribe to the 5 or 6 continent theory, Europe and Asia are counted as one continent, or two.

When I heard this, I think my jaw, pants and socks dropped all at the same time.

If you want to read more about this, check out this wikipedia link (it's in Spanish) , or click here for the English version of the page.

You can also go here for a nice color map of the 6 continents theory.

Amazing huh? Not only am I learning a new language, I'm learning geography all over again too! I'm beginning to get the picture that my adventures in Spanish are far from over.