by: SAM I don't know what came to mind, but I just thought of this: my first language (Spanish) is very rich in words, but I still love my second language (English) more. How much rich? I really cannot guess or say or think about it. When I was a kid, I thought that English was a class to be hate. I got pure C's and every year I almost fail, but somehow I passed the classes with an A. I really really hate that class, even the teachers. I thought about them like witches that wanted to confused me from reality. Let's be honest, in my country there are two officials languages (Spanish & English), but in every single corner of the country you will only hear Spanish. So, why would I learn a language that I will not use? Of course, that changed after a couple of years. When I was in eight grade, somehow I got interested in books. To be honest, in the Twilight saga. The problem? They were in English! I was so pissed, because I really wanted to read them. My fellow peers were reading them in English and I was the only stupid enough to buy them in, yeah, Spanish. It was so freaking horrible, but so hilarious. The translation was terrible, but very funny. Why? Most of those words were used by Mexicans (I'm not discriminating or anything, but admit it... everyone thinks that if you live in America and talk Spanish, then you are Mexican). After the disaster of Twilight, I swore not to buy another book in Spanish that was translated from English. For real, I didn't buy another book until 10th grade. Hurray! About this, well, I don't know what got into my mind, but I began to explore the Manga world. There was a "fashion" of reading them in my school at that moment and I was like "why not?". Yes, they were in English, but I challenge myself to read the whole series of The Death Note manga (which are 13 books). I was totally focused in that, so you see I looked like the most stupid person in my grade with a manga book and just beside it, a dictionary Spanish/English - English/Spanish. Between classes, I read. In lunch hour, I read. Before and after school, I read. Guess what? I finished all those books in 3 weeks. After that, my English teacher (and my grades in that classes) noticed about this incredible success. She even told me, that if I liked she would borrow me some of her books so I would keep reading. I said no, because I was kind of exhausted. I lied. Not two weeks had passed when the first movie of Percy Jackson came out. I saw it and I got so into it that I borrow the first three books from another student of my classroom and read them in a week. You see, that person didn't have books four or five, so guess what? I bought them, on Amazon. They were my first Amazon books. When they arrived, I was so high and excited and happy and all the emotions related with those. I began to read them and four days later... done! From there my English got better and better. I made my first tumblr, so I became socially active on Internet. As you can see almost everything in tumblr is in English and I like it that way. My writing, reading, even speaking improved a lot and I was so happy about it. True to be said, I didn't read another book until The Hunger Games were announced to be a movie. It happened the same as Percy Jackson, I saw the movie, got so much into it that I read the three books in a week. After that the first book of Heroes of Olympians came up and I read it, then the second and I read it too and even I read all my books assignments from English class. I read other books too, like The Mortal Instruments books and some others, but that its another story. Then came that moment in everyone's life... you graduated and go to University/College. That summer was so bored. I didn't bought books, because of reasons, and life became more and more boring every day that passed. University started and I tried, like really tried to focus in it. But books had a different plan. I swear that they were calling me from Amazon. But the thing is that all the ones I wanted, I couldn't afford them all. So I began to learn how to download them via Google for free. I still bought some in Amazon, like The Infernal Devices trilogy and the last book of Delirium and its short stories. I became an electronic reader. I even bought an iPad to read them better! First semester passed, then the second and I finished my freshman year of University. Summer came and with it, my enthusiasm of reading all the books I want. Goodreads says that I read 68 books in the whole summer. I count them from the last day of my freshman year to my first day of sophomore year. Sixty-eight books! I couldn't believe my luck. Right now, I'm still in my sophomore year, but I had stop reading too much. I really need to get good grades this year, because I have tough courses. As I was saying in the beginning, I loathed English. Very very much. Right now, I love it. Very very much. What's the problem? The papers are reversed. I love English now, but I hate Spanish. I can't (believe when I say that I can't) read Spanish. Not books, not essays, not classes books, not anything. It's so sad, because is the language I was born with it. My professors teach in that language (even the English one) and almost everything in my country is in Spanish. Is good to know two languages, don't get me wrong, but I still don't want to be related with it. I said too that Spanish is a rich language, so I will give you three examples (they are the most common and the only ones that came to my mind right now): > Imagine the following situation: you go to a restaurant, you order the food, the waiter comes and brought you the food and just before you begin to eat... what is he supposed to say? If you were in my country the waiter would say "buen provecho". There is no specific translation for that phrase in English. The most near one would be "enjoy your meal", but when you translate that phrase in Spanish will be a "disfrute su comida". Which as you can see its totally a different thing. > Now, imagine this one: you have this very special friend (you are a girl, by the way), which is a boy, and he begins to say that he LOVES you. Those specific words. Love means "amor" in Spanish. Up there we are good. Now, you really don't LIKE him that much to say the words back. Like means "gustar" in Spanish. We still good here. He still waiting for your reply, what you would say? If there was a word/phrase in English to express that you LIKE him, but not that much, then it would be very effective in this moment, but there is not. In Spanish would be "te quiero mucho", which is English (translated directly) means "I love you a lot". Are you seeing the problem here? "Te quiero mucho" doesn't mean that, it means like you like him, but not that much or at least not that much right now. There is no other phrase than "I love you" to express those feelings, the problem is that they are not, ugh. > The following one is a problem that I'm not used to it, but I have see it in books. Imagine, again, this: you have a friend of the same sex (its works better if you are a girl, but boys work too). He/She invited you to hang out, you accept and now you are going to let know your parents that you are going out with... who? How do you call your friend? Other than by his/her name, obviously. If we were talking in Spanish, I would have say "amiga". That means "girlfriend" in English. But hey, "girlfriend" means "novia" in Spanish. That its definitely not the same meaning. "Novia" can mean "bride" or the girl in a love relationship. If you are a boy, would you really call him boyfriend? I think of a "NO WAY" from you. You see, I can really explain myself in Spanish better, but I love more English. I got a big, enormous, giant issue here, right? How about not talking at all? IMPOSSIBLE! I'm a social person and no way I will stop talking because of an existential problem. There are people worst than me, right? So I should be happy about me, right? My conclusion would be like: Spanish is rich, but English is better for me. Yup, that's it.
