Free Spanish Lesson 55 – Visita personal

Vocabulary For the Newsletter – Vocabulario para el boletín

visita personal – personal visit

boletín – newsletter

diferencias culturales – cultural differences

como mencioné – as I mentioned

una persona – a person

amigos – friends

mujer – woman

hombre – man

besito – little kiss

abrazo – hug

cortés – courteous

gente – people

muy amable(s) – very friendly (plural)

misionero – missionary

casas – homes

niño – child

mami (maw-mee) – child’s word for “mother”

papi (paw-pee) – child’s word for “father”

¿Se encuentra tu mami? – Is your mother/mom home?

¿Se encuentra tu papi? – Is your father/dad home?

no está” – he or she isn’t here

padres – parents

porque – because (“por que” – with a space – is “why”)

puerta – door

técnica – technique

¡Tráelo rápido!” – Hurry and get (bring) him!

sin pensar – without thinking

es divertido – is fun

es bueno conocer – it is good to become acquainted (get to know)

-mente – -ly (this is a suffix or word ending; “mente” at the end of a word means “ly” in English)

For this week’s boletín, I want to talk about some of the diferencias culturales when visiting someone in Latin America.

Como mencioné in previous boletines, if you are visiting una persona you are relatives or good amigos with, and you are a mujer greeting another mujer or hombre, you would customarily give them a besito on the cheek. When hombres greet hombres, they will customarily give each other a handshake and often an abrazo. The Latin culture is a very polite and cortés culture and the gente are usually muy amables.

I had the opportunity to visit Latin America as a misionero for two years and visited literally thousands of gente in their casas in different countries. One of the things that really fascinated me is when we would knock on a puerta to visit a familia, generally a small niño would answer the door. We would then ask, “¿Se encuentra tu mami?” or “¿Se encuentra tu papi?” In every region I went to, the niño would always say “No está”. What got me, was that they would say this even if their “padres” WERE home.

At first, this really frustrated me porque in the U.S., for the most part, when someone comes to the puerta, if the padres are home and available, the child will say that they are home and get them. (Of course there are exceptions.)

I finally learned a técnica that was rather fun and worked well. Here’s what I did. When a niño would answer the puerta, I would ask, “¿Se encuentra tu papi?” and the niño would say “No está”. Then I would quickly say “¡Tráelo rápido!” The niño, sin pensar would automaticamente run and get his dad (or mom). After I learned this new técnica, getting in to visit people changed from a drudgery to almost like a juego divertido (fun game). I loved visiting the Latin people!

Moral of the historia: The Spanish culture es divertido and interesting. Es bueno conocer the culture and adapt yourself personalmente to it.

¡Hasta luego! (“Until later”)

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Written by David S. Clark President/Director, U.S. Institute of Languages. Copyright © 1999-2010 US Institute of Languages All rights reserved.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.