Just to impress y'all

John preached yesterday morning in the Larco church. This is just a snippet to impress his friends.
The video itself is not great - shaky hands, bad sound, etc. - but lean in close and listen as best as you can as he waxes eloquent in Spanish.

Hey John - you've come a long way baby.

Pronunciation

I have been asked:

TRA- e- lo: with a short "a", and the e makes a long "a" sound.

But I could be wrong.

It could be tra- E- lo with the accent on the e/long "a" sound.

But I like it better the first way and since I made it up, that's how I want to say it.

Spanish lesson for the day

I have had many opportunities of late in which the phrase "bring it on" was useful and appropriate. From games of monopoly, the serving of dessert, to discussions of trials and the resulting sanctification within. I have related to a few friends what I believed to be the Spanish translation of this most useful phrase: Traigalo.

My reasoning was such: It is a command and should therefore use the imperative form of the verb traer which means to bring. I believed the imperative to be traiga and I was mostly correct, but more on that in a moment.

The lo is the pronoun signifying it. Because we are using the imperative voice, the pronoun is tacked on to the end of the word giving us traigalo.

To translate the on is not possible without losing all the coolness we have thus far created within the translation. Which sounds better: traigalo or traigalo en? For our purposes, we are dropping the on/en and calling it "understood". We can do that because we are adding to the abundance of existing Spanish slang even now.

So it seems as if we are done, right?

That was until Sunday night over a rousing game of monoploy with a few of the trusty, hard-working, and masters of the Spanish language Peru Mission interns, it was brought to my attention that traiga is the Usted/formal form of the command. So one would use it when speaking to a doctor, a pastor, or say, one's grandmother. We all agreed that it would always be inappropriate to tell one's grandmother to "bring it on" and especially the grandmother that only speaks Spanish and that not many occasions arise to tell one's doctor or pastor to do so.

Thus the appropriate correction was made and traiga was changed to the informal form of trae. Tack on the lo and add an accent mark over the "a". Call the en understood and you get : Tráelo.

A useful phrase that is versatile and fun. Except with one's grandmother.

Just wait. It will be in the Spanish dictionary 10 years from now.

Zephaniah 3:17

The ESV translates this verse as: "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great joy in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will exult over you with singing."

I love this verse and it has been a great comfort to me in recent days.

As I was working on my Bible Study for the house moms at the orphanage, I came across this verse again, but this time in Spanish. I LOVE the translation the Reina Valera(King James)gives in Spanish and I think it captures the voice of the Lord in these words even more than my beloved ESV translation.

Listen:
Jehová está en medio de ti, poderoso, él salvará; se gozará sobre ti con alegría, callará de amor, se regocijará sobre ti con cantícos.

Transalation (mas o menos):
Jehova is in the middle of you, powerful, He will save; He will be joyful over you with happiness/joy (emphasis with the repetition), He will quiet lovingly, He will rejoice over you (still even more joy over us!) with songs.

I just love it. I love that the Spanish says "He is in the middle of you", because I can know that He is with me, but how much closer is being in the middle of me and what is going on in my life! I NEED Him in the middle of me and everything else going on around me. And I love the gentleness of the quieting us by his love. I get so worked up over things that are out of my hands, but not out of His. So He calms me and reassures me with words such as these. And I love that He is rejoicing and rejoicing over me. Why? Why in the world would He? But He does. Because I am His in and through Christ.

Oh Lord Jesus, please stay in the middle of me!

NEWS ALERT, NEWS ALERT

Justin Ferguson speaks Spanish. I repeat...Justin Ferguson speaks Spanish.

We really didn't know where he was after all that time in lessons because, frankly, we only speak English with him. But yesterday, after piano lessons with Emmanuel (seated on the couch with his lovely esposa) Justin engaged him and his sweet wife, Sarai in some card games to pass the time while they were waiting to be picked up by her sister for a trip. Sarai taught Justin how to play Suma. They must have played for 30 or 40 minutes. I was just amazed at Justin's conversation ability. Granted, he's not fluent, but he was saying things I didn't even know he knew and he even taught me a few things.

Anyway, just thought everybody should know.

I bet the rest of the kids aren't that far behind.

But they won't speak Spanish with us. It's just kinda weird. :)

I'm thinking about doing something crazy...

I'm trying to psyche myself up into taking on one of the Chronicles of Narnia in Spanish. Why would I do this? Not for pleasure, I assure you. No, I would be doing it as part of my continuing effort to make sense of something I am too old to be making sense of. We own all seven of the books in Spanish. They look great on the book shelf. Justin likes the covers better than their English counterparts. But he doesn't want to read them either - he just wants to admire their lovely art work.

I attempted to read The Horse and His Boy last year with my Spanish tutor (The Spanish title is "El Caballo y El Muchacho" translated as The Horse and THE Boy - they just couldn't get that point of the book apparently)but couldn't get past the description of the Tarkaan guy in the first chapter. Why should I wear myself out trying to write a sentence using the Spanish word for chain mail that is hooked together as fish scales? Am I going to need that anytime soon on the streets of Trujillo? I didn't think so and Noemi was well worn out by my feeble efforts, so we put the book away. That was August.

I also have Don Quixote in Spanish - complete and unabridged. That was $30 well spent on something I will NEVER read. It was purchased out of a misunderstanding over someone's recommendation. Apparently it was a kid's version I was supposed to be looking for. Ooops.
So I am thinking about picking up El León, La Bruja y El Armario.
But I just can't commit.
Maybe I'll go find The Cat and the Hat in Spanish instead, or even better, Dr. Suess' ABC Book.

Jason and Kevin step up

Jason and Kevin began formal Spanish lessons last week. It is necessary since we are blowing the "kids just learn the language without any problem" theory out of the water. It couldn't have anything to do with the 18 english- speaking missionary kids, or with their Peruvian friends only wanting to practice English. As I've said before, and I stand by it still - nobody is in therapy for not knowing Spanish - although I may end up being the first (Wade? Got any time?) But all that aside, they are enjoying their lessons and are even studying on their own. Buen trabajo guys!

Terminamos! (We're finished)

John, Justin and I have completed our Spanish lesson books after 9 months. We are so excited and encouraged to have persevered, thanks be to God who enables us. So what now? Well, John will continue to meet with Noemi (our maestra) to go over his talks and Sunday School lessons on Friday mornings. In August, Justin will begin "Spanish 2" so to speak. He will work through the verb book that John and I just completed. Jason and Kevin will begin Spanish lessons of their own using the Abeka Spanish curriculum which came recommended by a former Spanish teacher I met here at the orphanage. As for myself, I will work through reading The Horse and His Boy in Spanish and meet with Noemi once a week for help with vocabulary, discussion and composition assignments.
So all in all, what does this really mean? That we are fluent? No. It means that I can began meeting with Prince Myshkin again before I attempt to decipher what exactly Aslan is saying in Spanish.

Aprendiendo Spanish

A little "spanglish" for you. We like to mix up Spanish and English just to keep things hopping. We learned it from the Peruvians - they do it all the time.

Well, I thought I would give a bit of a "language learning" update. We may be improving. I actually called for a taxi today and it showed up at my house. And last night I received a phone call on our land line, or the "Peruvian phone" as we call it and began to have an interrogative conversation in Spanish only to discover that I was talking to Caleb, our Director of Curriculum for SALI - he's from Florida. We were impressed with each others authenticity.

John has been teaching Sunday School more and more in Spanish. He has heavy audience participation, but that's the way they like it. The Peruvians love to help us out with what we are trying to say.

Justin has had many a conversation with our friend Maria who helps us out at home. He has almost finished the first level of his Spanish book and will soon move into the book we are finishing up. The picture is of Justin working diligently with Noemi. Noemi is not only Justin's Spanish teacher, but ours as well, in addition to serving along side her husband as he pastors the church in Arevelo.

Kevin informed me a few days ago that he had a complete conversation in Spanish with Maria about his bike - how it was old and that maybe he would get a new one for his birthday and when she asked him when his birthday was, he told her "25 de julio".

Jason, Colton and Miranda are on the way. Jason can sing most of the songs in church, as can Miranda, although some words get mixed up, but she does that in English, so....

Colton still insists Maria can understand him when he talks to her in English, like the day I came into the kitchen and found Colton helping Maria chop green beans. I asked what he was doing and he said Maria said he could help. I said to her in Spanish, "I'm afraid". She said, "me too". Which then lead me to ask Colton to recap the conversation he had with Maria regarding his help. Apparently Colton walked into the kitchen , said "I want to help" in English - and then proceeded to grab the knife and chop away. No permission was actually granted except in Colton's mind. He thinks if he says it, then she understands it. It's a bit of a problem.

So with this encouraging news, don't get too excited. We still need prayers - while we are improving, we are far from fluency and speaking above the level of a small child. But I have greater hope that we may actually get somewhere with this crazy language yet.

More on the ludicracies of Spanish in another post.