Lesson Eighteen: Cumpleaños y el Caso Perdido

Today is David’s cumpleaños! Wahoo! Jimena starts the class off by singing Feliz Cumpleaños to him, and he has a rather interesting response to it...

Anyway, today is also the Saturday repaso with Jimena. David tells Jimena that he is going on a trip to weekend—he had his palm read by a beautiful woman and she told him she was going to an astrology retreat in Mar del Plata, so he’s going to go as well. He invites his princesa Jimena, but she kindly declines, as she is muy relajada at the moment. She is going to meter in the jacuzzi, and David becomes quite jealous, as he discovers Jimena’s boyfriend is wealthy enough to afford a jacuzzi in their home. This whole jacuzzi thing is quite the distraction throughout the entire episode, which is unfortunate because David has a hard enough time staying on track as it is.

After the introduction of the jacuzzi distraction, David asks Jimena for an explanation in terms of the whole Castellano/Español thing. I remember being really thrown off when I first got to Argentina and everyone was asking me how my Castellano was coming along. Uh, you mean Spanish? Wait, am I learning the wrong language? Well, according to Jimena, both refer to the official language of Spain and of the language of countries that are ex–colonies of Spain. The word ‘Castellano’ comes from Castilla, the region in the central of Spain. Apparently, Castellano is the name of the language, and Español is the nationality of Spain. It is more modern to say one speaks Español, but Castellano is accepted, as well.


After the long castellano/espanol explanation, David and Jimena play a guessing game where David has to describe famous people. We then play Tutti Frutti, a game that is often played in schools here, where Jimena says a letter and David has to say words in specific categories that start with this letter. David thinks he will be a lot better at this game than he actually is, and the explanations for words he chooses are, as always, very creative. Sangre, in David's world, is an adjective used to describe a person. Reasoning? If someone was covered in sangre and you didn't describe them as being covered in sangre, it would be an inaccurate description. Touché.

On another note, my dad has been watching Bueno, entonces... as well. The other day while making huevos rancheros on top of tortillas, my mom said, "Wow, that's a heaping pile of food." My dad's response? "Yeah, it's a taco alto."

Interesting what one picks up during their Spanish lessons.