John Simons

The language issue

One of the concerns that Josh and I spoke about at length before coming on this trip was the language barrier.  In Paraguay, they have two official languages: Spanish and Guaraní.  Josh was concerned because he doesn´t speak either.  I had some concern because, while I once was fairly good at Spanish, I had not used the language much in a long time.

Happily, both Josh and I have been able to communicate.  On our first morning here, Josh learned that sports is a great language to communicate.  Marcelo, who has become Josh´s friend and personal translator, got Josh playing soccer with some of the boys.  Since then, he has had friends with him regularly.  He is frequently seen laughing and playing with other boys, some his age, some younger and some older.  He has done incredibly well at learning some basic phrases to communicate, and at using Marcelo to help him speak to others.  He has also been great at blending into the group dynamics of our team.

› Continue reading

Tags: Guarani, Missions, Paraguay, Spanish

Spanish and Me - a History

Since I am preparing to head to South America, I have come to realize that my Spanish has gotten very rusty. Once upon a time, I could speak and understand Spanish fairly well, even if I was never really fluent. Of course, before that I really hated the Spanish language.

For starters, my mom was a high school Spanish teacher. She even went and did an exchange program while she was teaching. She went and spent a month (I think) living with a family in Saltillo, Mexico to improve her Spanish. My dad knew a little Spanish, but really not very much. My mom always wanted my brother and I to learn Spanish, and I can remember her giving us impromptu lessons while she cooked dinner, or at other times during everyday life. At that point, neither my brother nor I were particularly interested in learning a language that we didn’t see much need for.

› Continue reading

Tags: English, Language, Paraguay, South America, Spanish, travel