Visual Link Spanish™ Newsletter
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Make Spanish your New Years Resolution!

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Words of the Week
Words are taken from the Locations section of our Visual Link Spanish™ course -----

	English	Spanish
Monday	It is/He is/She is	Está
Tuesday	in/at/on	en
Wednesday	on (top of)	sobre
Thursday	underneath (of)	debajo de
Friday	against (the wall, etc.)	contra
Saturday	(over) here	(por) aquí
Sunday	(over) here - another way to say it	(por) acá
New Year's Resolution	Learn Spanish! Just do it! If you don't do it now, you may never do it! Click here for more information.

Culture ----- Water (Agua): Don't Drink it! Especially Cold!

Before we get into this week's topic, I wanted to let you know that at the bottom of this newsletter, I have included a few of the many great responses we had from last week's newsletter.

Now onto today's topic -- if you go on a trip to, or live in Latin America, don't drink the water right out of the tap! The water usually isn't potable because they don't use the same type of water treatment as in the U.S. If you accidentally drink the water out of the tap, you may get what many people, over the ages, have affectionately called "Montezuma's revenge". Among other symptoms, this condition will most likely include many unwanted trips to the restroom.

Now to change the topic a little, I want to share a cultural difference that I still don't quite understand and even now find humorous every time I think about it. In the U.S., we drink cold water and drinks frequently. We drink them during the day, at night and during meals. If you pick up fast food late at night even if it's cold outside, and order a water or soda, they usually put ice in it. (International newsletter readers, please let me know if this is done in the UK and Australia.)

In Latin America there is a very different mentality. The first time I asked for ice to put in a cold drink at night everyone gasped. They looked at me with shock and horror as if I were about to voluntarily throw myself off a cliff. I asked them, "What's wrong with ice?" They said, "You can't drink ice at night if you do, you'll be sick tomorrow morning." I thought they were joking and said, "When I lived in the U.S., I drank cold drinks with ice all the time at night." They looked at me in disbelief and shock, as if they wondered how I was still alive.

Unfortunately, the "no ice in your drink" thing was not just at night. I would frequently go to people's homes in the summer for lunch in 100° weather with no air conditioning, and they would always serve hot soup and a luke-warm drink. I thought I was going to die without something cold in such hot weather. But, as you can read, luckily I'm still alive and able to write our "lleno de emoción" Spanish newsletter.

Back to drinking ice at night -- every once in a while, I would wake up in the morning with a sick stomach. If I told the family we ate breakfast with every day, that I had a sick stomach, they would always ask me, in an accusing tone, if I had had water with ice in it the night before. If I told them I had, they would say "Ah Hah! we told you so, but you just didn't listen!!! -- Just don't drink any more ice water at night and you'll be okay."

As I look back on my experience with ice in Latin America and try to figure out the mystery of that cultural difference, the only thing I can come up with is since they never drink icy dinks at nightm their stomachs simply aren't used to it.

Now for the moral of this week's story: If you want to drink cold drinks with ice at night in a pueblo (small city) in Latin America, you'd better hide or do it where nobody will see you. Otherwise you could cause quite an uproar and a lot of concern for your health. Actually, come to think of it, if you are a person deprived of attention, go ahead and put ice in your drink.

¡Hasta la próxima semana! (Until Next Week!)

Sneak peek at next week (for real this time): Cultural Hand gestures

David S. Clark -- President / Director
U.S. Institute of Languages
dave@spanishprograms.com
http://www.spanishprograms.com
866-9SPANISH

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Responses from Last week's newsletter

 Response #1
In the year 2000 my husband and I spent Navidad y Año Nuevo in Venezuela. It was one of the most wonderful times we ever had.

 Response #2
Hi.

You really struck a nerve with me when you mentioned the Latin dancing.

I was thinking of staying home. Since, I got dumped by my Latino boyfriend, I think that maybe I will go with his brother to the dance.

I love their dancing! I can't believe that anyone would want to dance for 5 hours straight! It is crazy, I have actually found men that can out dance me. I love it!

I tell my female friends that they have to go. Not only will you get to dance, but you will be the one in control. I mean that their are like 5 men for every female...I absolutely love it! No place else can you swung, twirled and tossed about as you can at the dance!

Jenne

 Response #3
Hi David,

My name is Marcy Italiano, and I am an author, as well as a computer instructor. I teach adults how to use computers, and this past term, half of my students were Spanish. They made jokes about how I should teach them in Spanish.

"You would have to teach me Spanish first!" I joked back.

So they did. Or at least, they're trying. I keep getting French (being so Canadian) and Italian (married them) mixed in there. I've found your website helpful, and these emails are a nice little breakdown of short lists of words to learn. You should see the lists they give me! LOL! They are trying to teach me "straight Spanish" as they are from Columbia, El Salvador, Mexico.... and they all speak differently. Oi! Try learning from too many witches stirring the brew! We managed pretty well.

One of the men offered to teach me to dance. In my classroom, with no music! There had to be a better way. Turns out, there is a club that has a Latino night here in town, and they offered free lessons at the beginning of the night. Bingo! ...

...When Canadians go to a dance (when I was younger anyway) we went to drink, and either sway or "bop" to the music. The moves were the same for every song, and the slow songs didn't really move much at all. Guys generally HATED dancing, and just watched the girls happily. It was a chance to flirt from afar. I knew it would be a little different dancing Latino, but I really had no idea. My free lesson went well, and being an athlete, musician, and yoga practiser in my youth (I just turned 30 LOL!), I picked it up pretty well. Then they sped it up! Oh, mi calidad!

Going to Canadian and Italian weddings all my life, I have learned the waltz. Living in a very German area (Kitchener-Waterloo), I have learned to polka at Oktoberfest. These dances use very large, sweeping steps. I was not used to such small steps dancing the salsa, or merengue. It was hard to get used to, or maintain the closeness you keep with your partner throughout. Again, with Canadian dancing you stand apart and happen to be facing each other as you move. I was drinking water all nightm I could not believe the physical workout you get all over the dance floor. One of the men who offered to dance with me had sweaty hands, and I almost went flying to the floor. When women return from a spin, the men literally catch you by the fingertips, and this guy just WHOOP! Back dancing with my friend, he tried to have a conversation with me as we danced, but I found I was trying to concentrate so hard on dancing, that when I spoke I lost my feet. It is FAST, and intense, and I think detailed is another way I would describe it. The details of a waltz are merely hand on waist, hand in hand, one two three, one two three. The polka, same thing, but jump when you do it. LOL! I don't even know where to begin with Latino dancing. I was spun in five different ways, dipped, a hair comb move, slid along arms, shifted, and I think my hips fell right off by the end of the night...

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