Puta la Huevada, Huevón

Spanish immersion, day three. Having delivered all our clothes and towels to the local launderette, who seemed very relaxed about when they would be ready for collection - using the word 'mañana' repeatedly and a issuing slew of times which got later with each repetition - we had no choice than to go to class in yesterday's clothes without a shower. Disgraceful as this is, it bought us some extra time to sleep in. Despite the lie-in, focusing our attention was muy dificil this morning.

Today we covered adjectives, their agreement with the number and gender of nouns. As with many European languages - in contrast to English - the modifying adjective most often comes after the noun that it is describing, e.g. el lápiz azul (blue pen), la manzana rica (delicious apple). However, the flexibility of the language means, once again, that a reordering of the words can avoid the ambiguity inherent in English. For example, to describe someone as an "old friend", we might say compañero antiguo (stressing their age), or antiguo compañero (if you have known them for a long time). Similarly un auto nuevo is fresh out of the factory, while mi nuevo auto is new to me, but might in fact be secondhand.

Naming and describing things is all well and good, but the frustrating thing about learning a new language is being stuck having a conversation solely in the present tense for the first week or so. Until we become familiar with more advanced conjugations, this limits the complexity of what can be talked about. Until then, we say things like "yesterday I go to the shops", which causes confusion about the time frame of any activity under discussion.

In the afternoon conversation class, I asked innocently about a slang term I picked up last night. The teacher seemingly took great relish in launching into a comprehensive and academic description of the etymology of this - it turns out vulgar - term.

Much like the word 'cosa', meaning 'thing', those of limited vocabulary (or poor memory) can substitute weyá (written huevada) for unknown things and weyón (huevon) for unknown people in conversation. These two terms originally have a pejorative meaning, as they derive from huevo - literally meaning 'egg' but signifying the male anatomical parts of the same shape - and hence wouldn't be used in polite conversation. And so, this allows to construct such elegant and articulate sentences as puta la weyón weyón, weyón ("screw that stupid jerk, man"). These terms even feature in the formal dictionary of Chilean slang and has found favour all over Latin America.  It has even spawned an equivalent verb, huevear, which can be conjugated just like any other verb, and means to waste time or to party.

After this fascinating diversion into Chilean vernacular, we signed off the lesson with the rather more formal "que tengas un bueñ día" (have a nice day). This set phrase goes far beyond our knowledge of the (indicative) present tense, in that it uses the subjunctive, as there is doubt over whether the person will indeed have a nice day!

Despite two invitations to go out this evening - both to speak yet more Spanish and at least one to dance - we opted for a quiet evening for 'the hump' day of the week. This meant we could consolidate a bit of study and make a home-cooked meal. With the small amount of ingredients we have, I decided to ring the changes and assemble them in a slightly different configuration.

Hostel fare

Frying the large courgette using some cornmeal snaffled from the box of leftover food, I put them with our pasta bows in a creamy sauce with mushrooms and fresh, chewy corn. With a glass of Carmenere from the Cousiño-Macul vineyard we visited last week, it was good to have some midweek downtime before Thursday and Friday's onslaught.