by Pa Rock
I wish that I was fluent in Spanish, but the best I can do is a vocabulary of 200-300 words that I can readily call up and properly pronounce. I get lost as soon as the person with whom I'm tyring to communicate speeds things up to a jabber. I recognize the common curses - I learned that in college from a Colombian friend, and know my colors, days of the week, farm animals, numbers, directions, and basic tourist phrases. I can also conjugate some of the more common verbs.
I enjoy acquiring new words and phrases as they present themselves. My latest acquisition, "piso mojado," was on a warning cone in the basement of my hotel this afternoon. It means "wet floor." It struck me as amusing, and I think that I will incorporate it into my lexicon of Spanish curses. Used with the right inflection and level of force, it might just get the gringos to step aside!
Piso mojado!
