Patience?

When I lived in Turkey, it was astounding the number of people who spoke enough English to get by. When all else failed, someone would run over to the nearest elementary school and bring back a student to translate. English was taught in most schools. The second most common foreign language was German. I learned enough Turkish to shop and bargain and ask my way around.

If I had it to do over again, I would have passed on the three years of Latin I took in high school and gone for more than the one year of French I took my senior year and my freshman year in college. I would definitely have taken Spanish. I'm learning it now, but my poor old brain doesn't soak stuff up as well as it used to. I did pretty well when I was in Mexico in September, as far as reading things.

Of course, Chinese is where it's at today, but then you have Mandarin....and Cantonese....and Hakka....and Fujian......and......

 

In Spanish, the j can be barely heard or sound like an h so wouldn’t it be a banho?

 

In most Spanish, banjo may be spelled either banyo or banjo, but is pronounced more like banyo. The Guatemalans around here speak Spanish, some with words from one or more of the 22 Mayan languages. The only Central or South American country that doesn't have Spanish as the official language , is Brazil. Portuguese is the official language for Brazil.

I have two Jose guys on my street and I finally have it straight who is Ho-zay (Mexico) and who is roughly Jo-zay (Zu-ze with a soft Zh sound at the beginning and a short e at the end) for those that can make such sounds) (Brazil). I call them Ho and Jo for clear distinction, but that confuses one neighbor lady that is Vietnamese. Since the Mexican guy is homosexual, she calls him Ho She Man for Vietnamese twist. "I make joke," she says.

 

Heck, I may just learn Spanish, but then again, I'll never again go to Mexico or any other "South of the Border" country. The only Mexican city I was ever in was Tijuana, while in the Navy in San Diego. Most-to-all people from Mexico don't even want to talk about Tijuana. I mean it's definitely not the most beautiful city in Mexico!

 

You don't need to travel south of the border, since the border states are being overrun with illegals. They are all coming here to turn the USA into the same sewer that they ran away from. In Houston/Harris County, "they" are the majority and they just keep coming. Thanks, Joe!

 

I think you’ll just have to explain that to the Guatemalans next door to me.
They seem to believe that they have their own language aside from Spanish and quite frankly, if they’re happy with calling it Guatemalan, then so am I.
Guatamalan may be derived from some Mayan languages but I assure you, when I asked 13 year old Marcia how many languages she speaks, she proudly said 3. Guatemalan, Spanish and English and in that order.
*I pay her to translate for me should I need it and have encouraged her to start teaching English to Maria, her mother, a Guatemalan. Very smart kid. *

I speak English. Even though it is derived from Latin, German, Greek and a gobbledegook of others thrown in, I still speak English.
To a Mexican, even though it isn’t Castilian Spanish, they speak Spanish. To a Guatemalan, even though it might not be a recognized S. American language, they speak Guatemalan.

 

I simply said that the Guatemalans around here speak Spanish and some have special words or phrases that are unique to one or more of the Mayan languages. If your renters say they speak Guatemalan, then that indicates they speak one of more of the many native Mayan languages that still exist in Guatemala. I note that you also posted that they speak Spanish, which makes sense because that is the official language of that country.

Concerning the many "native" languages spoken in Guatemala, the most common is K'iche with 1 million speakers and the rarest is Itza with 12 speakers. Some of these languages differ so much that they cannot understand one another. A good comparison would be languages of the American Indian. There isn't one language called Native or Indian, but rather many that go by the tribal name.

And no, I don't need to explain anything to your Guatemalan neighbors, anymore than I need to explain my understanding to a rodeo top 10 performer, as Cody has suggested in the past.

I will be glad to discuss anything with members of the forum, but it has never impressed me, when one says for me to go tell it to someone else that isn't on the forum.

If any of your Guatemalan neighbors are seniors, get them signed up here. I would love to learn more about their "native" language and which one it is. I am guessing K'iche, since it boast 1 million speakers, but I could be totally wrong.

Since this thread is about patience, I have little patience for "tell that to whomever" as a way of trying to make me or anyone else, appear to not know what they post about.

 

You know and speak for all the people in Mexico now, as well as for all the seniors in Colorado and Nevada? Wow, I'm impressed.

 

And I as well.
Google is a wonderful teacher is it not?
Perhaps, since your notoriety has expanded to going to Vietnam during the war, you might enlighten us about their languages and dialects as well.
Or, maybe your anthropological studies in languages as applied from the perspective of a forensic scientist might be of equal importance.

Yup…….I’ve lost my patience with it all……..bye.

 

Well, it happened AGAIN last night. My wife's older sister (80), met us at South Point Hotel/Casino for dinner. Her Timeshare is right down the street from South Point. Her and my wife had leftovers from dinner, so we took the food out to our vehicle. Her vehicle was in another parking lot. We all went back into the casino and played 1-cent slots for awhile.

When we left, we went to our vehicle, because her leftover was in it as well as a couple of things we were giving her to take back to California with her. Instead of her walking over to the parking lot where her vehicle was, we took her in ours. Problem was, she didn't know exactly where she parked. I asked her a couple of times "does the front and rear of your vehicle light up, like ours does, when you disable the alarm on your FOB?" She simply wouldn't answer me! We kept driving around and driving around and I ask her about her FOB again, and again, she wouldn't answer. Finally she thought she seen it and got out of our vehicle, but didn't shut the door. It turned out that she hadn't seen it. There was a young lady walking to her vehicle and the SIL told her what she was doing. The young lady asked her about her FOB alarm button, of which the SIL didn't know a thing about it. She told the young lady, "I don't use that stuff".

Well, the SIL finally found her vehicle, but by that time, my patience had really worn down, but everything turned out ok.

This same thing happened in 2021 in the Cosmopolitan Hotel/Casino parking lot in Vegas. We found our rented vehicle quickly (wrote down location), but had to drive around for almost a 1/2 hour looking for hers. Same vehicle as last night, with same FOB and alarm, but never had used it. Only electronic thing she uses is her iPhone and then she only uses it for texting, calling and sometimes Facebook.

She is leaving tomorrow (Friday) AM to go back home to California. Like I've said before, "very nice lady, but.........."

 

I don't have a fob either but I write down the aisle etc.

 

I would have trouble with cajun salted English. Spanish in NYC was Pueto Rican while it is Cuban based in Florida. That Gabriel Inglacias comedian tells about understanding (sort of) different types of Spanish. He is quite funny.
I was in Tijuana a few decades ago and found it fun and interesting. Not sure I would want to go now. Even back then English was spoken because that is how you took the tourists.

 

The SIL will text us to ask my wife where she misplaced something. Sometimes my wife will know, but most of the time, it's a waste of time for SIL to ask my wife the "where did I put it".