The boys and I picked up a couple friends from the Hispanic group we’re in on Sunday nights and took them hiking at Patapsco Valley State Park, this afternoon.  And besides being an excellent friendship-builder, this afternoon also proved to be one of expanding our Spanish by immersion.

Stand-out words of the day:  former slur terms that are now used as national identification slang (often with pride) by the various people of Central America.

Happy to share. Read the rest of this entry

When we started the adoption process for the twins, I knew next to no Spanish.  My brother Steven  came home from Guatemala just 2 weeks shy of my senior year of college, so it was a little late to switch from French at that point.

So I began learning Spanish in the Fall of 2006 with the initial goal of obtaining enough vocabulary to be able to communicate the basics with the two little boys we knew were coming (food/animal/vehicle names, “it’s bedtime,” … “because I said so, and I’m the mom, that’s why!” … just kidding on the last one… although …). 

Three and a half years later, with many interruptions in learning (homeschooling those aforementioned twins), I’m becoming conversant - but have a far greater understanding of Spanish than I can speak.  Still working.  Just waiting for a “language burst” to hit me.

But I know I’ll need it even more with this second adoption.  The kid(s) will be older than the twins were, so he/she/they may well be nearly fluent in Spanish.  There’s so much else to adjust to in an adoption that I’d like the language-barrier reduced as much as possible.

 So for those just starting out on your own like I was, consider stocking yourself with: Read the rest of this entry

Lest I become too comfortable and then unduly complacent in the Hispanic ministry group I mentioned joining back in the fall, I was hit with another stretch-goal last night: sharing mi testimonio (my testimony as a Christian) – en español.

I think our group leader likes me.  But he announced to the group a few weeks ago that “Kim has volunteered to go first and will be sharing her testimony in Spanish next week.”    – Announced it to them before announcing to me that I would be speaking so soon! 

Only he said it IN Spanish, so it sounded like

 >>Kim se ha ofrecido a ir primero y va a compartir su testimonio en español la próxima semana.<<

… good thing I understand more than I can speak or I’d have never known!   

I wasn’t exactly feeling the love at just that time. Read the rest of this entry

Fred and I had one of our (many) gringo moments the night we first set up this blog.  While we owe the name idea itself to a good friend (Hi, Chris!), we discovered that HOW we spelled it sends messages we didn’t even realize. 

Mamasita – according to UrbanDictionary.com (and confirmed among other sources), “is a misspelling of mamacita, the Spanish for ‘little mother.’”  It means “a hot mama; a hot babe; a ho of particularly hispanic/spanish but possibly other decent.” 

Whoops.  Yeah, not that one, thanks.

Mamacita – means “little mother.”  And “rather like the English word ‘momma,’ mamacita can mean a mother of both the standard and the red hot kind.”  UrbanDictionary is even so kind as to note: “If you spell it ‘mamasita,” you probably don’t speak Spanish.” 

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.  Spelling does count.  The English-major within me rejoices that we caught that one before I began snagging porn-seekers from all over the not-so-Spanish-speaking world!