Replica

Spanish week 2 began today. We were granted a brief reprieve, and a lie-in, as lessons didn't start until 10am - after the new cohort had taken their placement test.

With some new joiners in the class - while others had left - I feared that we would end up repeating last week's curriculum and exercises. Fortunately, this was not the case. While last week focused principally on nouns and adjectives, this week was all about the verb.

For such a progressive school, the lesson today bore all the hallmarks of the traditional image of a Latin teacher's drilling verb conjugation, especially given the similarity of Spanish to the dead tongue. At one point we found ourselves reciting the conjugation familiar to many a schoolboy - amo, amas, ama, amamos, amáis*, aman.**

* vosotros form (informal second person plural) not actually used in Chilean Spanish.

** Observe the following Latin conjugation for the similarities to Spanish: amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.

The afternoon's conversation class largely revolved around the differences we could expect to find when travelling north to Bolivia and Peru. Chile - especially Santiago - has seemed very familiar and, without being told, we could easily think we were in a Spanish city in Europe. Farther north, we are told, there is a higher concentration of indigenous people and we can expect a much different landscape. Our teacher believes, rightly in some cases, that many Europeans see Latin America as a homogenous culture, a hot-blooded vida loca full of fiestas, tango and salsa dancing. Chile is actually much more understatedly European than its neighbours. While I have heard 'latin' music being played, I haven't seen a single person dancing.

Being Monday, tonight was welcome drinks for the new joiners. This meant terremoto - the odd Chilean pineapple ice cream cocktail named 'earthquake'. Apparently the second round of terremoto is called the replica - 'aftershock'. With replicas in hand, we tried to imagine that our Spanish was any better than a week ago.