John, Paul, Sonja and David after a dip in the river near Arizkun.

I remember an article on how living  near green spaces can be shown to improve mental health, so thanks Paul for routing it out for me!  Add these findings to those of a  previous article on my blog on how exercise is shown to aid mental agility and memory and it therefore makes sense that  ’green exercise’ should reap the benefits of both the ‘green’ and the  ’exercise’.  Now this BBC article implies that adding a touch of  ‘blue’  i.e. a river or a lake,  and stress levels and depression drop even more. Here are just a few facts I have gleaned about the benefits of  exercise on mind, body and spirit - I welcome more information if anyone has it.   

• Physical exercise is critical to mental agility and memory.
• A rich social life can help improve mental sharpness.
• Just 5 minutes exercise in a park can boost mental health.
• Living near green spaces shows a positive effect on anxiety disorders and depression; also coronary heart disease and diabetes.
• Children younger than 12 were less likely to suffer depression in the greener areas.
• Regular running or aerobic exercise in the over 50´s can dramatically slow the ageing process; remarkably slowing down the rate of death from heart disease, heart attacks, cancer and neurological diseases.  

For more facts on how green exercise can benefit mind, body and spirit have a look at the link below. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8654350.stm 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7554293.stm

Walking through the national park of Itxusi.

Steve asked in a haberdasher’s shop; the two women inside shrugged their shoulders. Try the square where the town hall is, they suggested. So we did. Still no cider festival; we studied a few more posters without success, as usual taking photos of some of them so that we could decipher them with the help of the Basque-French dictionary later. On the way back down the hill we asked in a newsagent. “Oh yes, el dia de la sidra. It’s this afternoon. At seven o’clock.” Hmm. To us, “dia” had implied “all day”. And to the Spanish, “afternoon” starts at about four and goes on till nine. Leitza didn’t look so interesting that we wanted to hang about till seven in the hope that a couple of stalls selling cider might appear. “Let’s go the butcher’s shop near where we parked the car,” I suggested. “I want to buy some chicken for dinner.”

The window of the butcher’s had a poster in it (in Basque) which seemed to be an advert for a museum of stone-cutting. Inside, the walls were plastered with photos and newspaper cuttings showing large sweaty men heaving improbably large blocks of stone onto their shoulders. Ahh, harrijasotzaile (Basque stone lifters)! “My dad,” said the butcher proudly. “And my brother.” “What about you?” asked Steve, eyeing his slim, thirty-something frame doubtfully. “I like partying too much,” he grinned. “It’s our family museum – it’s open till two-thirty if you want to see it.” Well, we didn’t have anything better to do, so we drove out of town and followed a large pointing finger sculpted in concrete up a steep track.

We arrived at a farmhouse overlooking a field. In the field were a giant Basque beret, a few stone circles, dolmens, and menhirs, standing stones with letters painted on them, an 8-metre tall statue of a man with a spherical stone on his shoulder, painted in brilliant silver, and an even more massive silver arm and shoulder emerging from the earth. The usual ponies and sheep appeared unconcerned by this, grazing calmly around the giant legs of the statues, and scratching their backs on the menhirs.

There was a bus parked outside the farmhouse, and when we went inside about 40 people were milling round a table drinking cider and eating pintxos. TV screens on the walls were looping images of the butcher’s dad heaving stones onto his shoulder. A 50-ish woman with jet-black hair and the figure and general appearance of a flamenco dancer bustled up to us. She looked less Basque than we do. “Gabble gabble gabble,” she said. I’d been congratulating myself only the previous day on how much better I was at understanding people, but now I felt I’d been put on a magic carpet and whisked off to Andalusia. I could barely understand a word she said. Her less frenetic daughter, who had the blonde hair and pretty, round face more typical of Basques, then approached and between us we managed to establish that no, we weren’t part of the coach party, no we weren’t in a hurry, and yes, we’d love to be shown around the museum with the visiting party. “My mother does speak rather fast,” apologised the daughter, handing us a glass of orange juice each and a plate with a couple of croquetas on it. “I hope you can understand her.”

After we’d watched the video, the flamenco dancer, who turned out to be the wife of Mr Perurena senior, the stone lifter, gathered us around the stone-lifting paraphernalia in the centre of the room, and firmly gripped the edge of a 100-kg stone block with her manicured hands. Surely she’s not going to … No, she wasn’t, she was just explaining the correct method of lifting the stone to your chest, turning it end-over-end, and then hitching it up bit by bit to your shoulder, whereupon you drop it onto a strategically-placed tractor tyre; unless you’re going to show off first by rolling it around your neck half a dozen times (if it’s a sphere) or marching round the room with it balanced on your shoulder.

After this she explained the significance of the various sculptures in the field (mythology … identity … Basque history … language … poetry … constructed metal frameworks for the statues … brought and poured all the concrete by hand – I only grasped odd phrases of this). Then we were taken to the museum, which was a mixture of items related to the use of stone in general and to her husband and son in particular. We tried to follow her rapid-fire commentary; it was one of the occasions when I truly regretted not having a better command of Spanish, because her anecdotes were obviously highly entertaining and she often had the crowd roaring with laughter.

But looking around at the photos, certificates, and newspaper cuttings on the walls, it gradually began to dawn on us that her husband, Iñaki, and her son, er, Iñaxio (I have revised my estimate of the proportion of Basque men called Iñaki or variations thereof to 66%), were Very Important Stonelifters. Broad-shouldered, puffball-faced giant Iñaki had set the world record for lifting a stone of 322 kg onto his shoulder – we’d seen a video of him doing this, and the Guinness Book of Records certificate displayed here confirmed it. La Force Basque à Bercy, proclaimed posters bearing witness to Iñaki’s international reputation, doing demonstrations in Paris to crowds of thousands. There were photos of Iñaxio aged about seven lifting a modest 25 kg, at 13 lifting 90, and in his 20s, better-looking and more lightly built than his dad but just as strong, heaving 300-kg plus blocks. Even leaving aside the difference in physique, you could always tell who was who, because father always heaved stones onto his left shoulder, son onto his right.

Upstairs in the attic, the equipment for other less important Basque sports was on show. Woodcutting of course. Stone-piercing (bashing a stone with a pointed metal stick till you make a hole all the way through). Hoe-throwing. Anvil-carrying. Bale-tossing. Do you sense a theme emerging here? Espadrille-tossing. Corncob-gathering. Milk-churn carrying. Yes, really. A photo showed a bunch of elderly men trudging along carrying milk churns. Barriers at the sides of the road were lined with people screaming encouragement as if they were Tour de France cyclists powering up the last few metres of the Alpe d’Huez.

A whole world we never knew existed, with its own stars. Some of these sports may sound laughable at first, but are they any more laughable than a bunch of conceited, overpaid, spoilt brats kicking an inflated pig’s bladder round a field? Nearly all of them represent genuine, useful tasks with their own challenges that needed to be done every day. “We Basques are poor,” claimed Maite, “so we just have to use the materials to hand for our sports.” I wasn’t convinced by this; the houses, the cattle, the churches all proclaim the Basques to be relatively rich by “peasant” standards. I came away with the inescapable impression that deep in the Basque psyche is the need to struggle, to excel, to show “I’m harder than you are,” or even “My ram can beat your ram any day”. Almost every agricultural activity is looked at by the Basque with the thought, “How can I bet on this?”

The museum was also evidence of the fact that Basques (the ones on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees at any rate) truly do believe that they are special, and that their specialness must be preserved and defended against attempts to deny it. A later champion stonelifter (record of 326 kg) Migueltxo Saralegi says in an interview: “I’m sorry, but we are just stronger. It’s the race….We do our tasks. We have a history with the stones. An Italian man with the same muscles can’t pick up our stones, because he has no reason to.”

At home we googled and researched the ins and outs of harrijasotzaile. This is the point at which we realised what global stars the Perurenas are. YouTube videos by the cartload. Articles and interviews. Wikipedia entries. And we’d never have discovered any of it if we hadn’t stepped into the butcher’s to buy some chicken. We never did get to the cider festival.

If you can’t visit the museum yourself, here’s Iñaki Perurena himself talking about it.

A guest post from Veronica of La Recette du Jour.

We took the opportunity of living a few months at Iaulin Borda in Ameztia in the Navarran Pyrenees. It is next door to a sheep farm run by Sagrario and her husband, Ignacio, so we to went over one day to find out how our neighbour makes cheese. She has about a hundred sheep and for part of the year makes cheese in her kitchen every couple of days. It’s a surprisingly simple procedure, requiring little equipment.

You will need:
about 7-8 litres of this morning’s sheep’s milk (I expect cow or goat milk works just as well)
about half a teaspoon of liquid rennet or other coagulant (I’m told nettles work, but I haven’t tried them yet)
A large metal pan or bucket to hold the milk
a thermometer
a large wire whisk
a cheese mould lined with cheesecloth

It goes without saying that all your equipment must be scrupulously clean. First of all, heat the milk to 36 degrees C. Turn off the heat. Add the rennet to a very small amount of water, about a tablespoon (just to make it dissolve better). Pour into the milk and mix thoroughly with the whisk. Leave to stand for 20-30 minutes. Sagrario told us that you could achieve the curdling by dangling a bit of tripe in the milk, but she prefers liquid rennet!

At this point the milk should have thickened to a lumpy, yoghurty consistency. Don’t proceed to the next stage until it does.

Reheat the milk to 39 degrees C, whisking constantly to break up the curds. According to Sagrario, this is important to kill all the bugs and prevent your cheese from ending up full of maggots. Remove from the heat and set aside to settle for 5 minutes.

Plunge your hands into the bucket and grope around the bottom, pulling all the settled solids together. Lift out your large and dazzlingly white lump of cheese, squeezing with your hands to firm it up and get rid of some of the liquid. Press into the lined mould and squish it down as hard as you can.

The cheese is left to drain for 24 hours, then put in a cheese press and squeezed further before being left to mature for two months. The resulting hard cheese will keep for up to a year.

There was a lot of liquid whey left over in the bucket. “It’s not wasted,” Sagrario assured us. “You can take this liquid and boil it up. Lots of froth will appear on the top. You can scoop this off; it’s called requesón, and it’s delicious.” A check in the dictionary confirmed that this was curd cheese, the word literally meaning “re-cheese”. And later we realised that the word ricotta (re-cooked) in Italian expresses exactly the same principle.

Even simpler is cuajada, a very simple and delicious dessert  made in small clay pots that’s often served as a dessert with honey or sugar. It’s basically junket; the sheep’s milk is simply curdled with rennet as in the first stage above, and then left to set in pots. I’m going to gather some nettles to make my own rennet for this.

Early days with Manolo. Mobile office in Ituren in the Pyrenees.

(Here is an except from Corporate Woman Magazine 2003 on the first humble origins of my company, ´Pyrenean Experience’  )

Walking in The Pyrenees

“At 34, I left my Danish lover, determined to make a few changes in my life: firstly my sense of direction – I had always intended to move south, not north; secondly, to unite two passions: language and mountains – neither of which being particularly spectacular in Copenhagen!

Having written my first book, ‘Freedom to Choose’, encouraging others to reach for their dreams, it seemed cowardly not to put my theories to the test. So, in 1999, I flew to Madrid with walking boots and pocket dictionary. There I hired a car and headed for the hills. The dream – to run language and walking holidays in the Spanish Pyrenees. The objective – to find the place where it would all begin.

Today, I write this article from my Pyrenean mountain cottage, (Iaulin Borda), the log fire alight and a snow storm outside. I have climbed the steepest slopes of my life, those of the learning curve, and now have a small, successful walking company which has featured in the National Press and on Spanish TV.

The Tabby Cat by the Fire

I had a budget of £5000, was a fair-weather walker, had no experience of the travel industry whatsoever, little knowledge of Spain and even less of the language. The closest I had come to ´language activity’ holidays was on a husky-drawn Eskimo sledge in Greenland where I taught English verbs to an Inuit woman at -20 degrees! …. “

Read the full article on http://www.spanishlanguagewalkingholidays.com/PE10110WhatThePapersSay.asp

Learn Spanish while you walk – not just an ‘off-beat’ idea.

When I started our Spanish Language and Walking holidays 12 years ago the combination seemed to make good common sense! Not only would I, at least, get to do two things I loved, but the walks appeared to add another dimension to language learning all of their own.  Walking  immediately put people at their ease – they could hang back, stride forward, mix and mingle and no one was ever put on the spot to speak up unless they wanted to. On the other hand, the beautiful landscapes, the village fiestas, the beers in local bars etc. all provided endless topics of conversation and so although no one was ever put ‘on the spot’  – everybody had something to say! Conversation, naturally,  bubbled forth (mistakes and all!). Words and expressions also seemed easier to remember …‘castaño’ (chestnut) was more likely to stick in the memory archives  had you accidently sat on one over a picnic lunch,  ‘pásame el vino por favor’  if there was actually a bottle (or bota) to hand; and the expression ‘ secorro! ‘ (help!) would never be forgotten again if we really did have to send in the emergency services to rescue you ! 

And … 

Science has now proven me right! A few months ago Paul, a psychology lecturer, and former Pyrenean Experience guest/friend  forwarded me an article from Scientific American Mind (July/August 2009) which shows proof that there is a powerful link between physical activity and mental acuity;  that regular exercise not only improves memory but also limits the risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s. We have long heard that puzzles, suduko and other mental gymnastics (such as the learning of  languages (nudge nudge)) are good for mental health at an older age, but now it seems that regular physical exercise, such as walking, has really positive effects too.  The report also mentioned that other factors such as getting involved in social groups and having a good network of friends also  helped to improve mental cognition. 

So it seems that this fanciful idea of running Spanish Language & Walking house parties in the Pyrenees is more than a ‘off-beat’ idea … that they are actually ‘good’ for you!  Perhaps one day we will be able to get them on prescription! 

Link to the article in Scientific American Mind Review (July/August 2009)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fit-body-fit-mind  

(I am sure I read somewhere that a couple of glasses of wine in the evening and the odd beer at the bar at lunchtime had positive effects too … can anyone help me on that one?).  

Walking & Spanish Language Holidays: www.pyreneanexperience.com

Café lessons - a moment of study at the bar in Ziga

Koikili and my daughter, Marion, 6, at our Pyrenean mountain home.

Ask Koikil what he does for a living and he will say that he is an unemployed smuggler. Like many of the people here on the Basque/Spanish – French border Koilki was a very young child when he first accompanied his father on his night smuggling missions over the Pyrenees into France. Born in 1955, Koikili’s family had a tradition of horse breeding and so he has spent his life roaming the mysterious wooded slopes of the mountain passes. During the Franco era, and beyond,  (the last time he was apparently shot at was in 1992),  Koikili would smuggle sheep and horses over the border to fetch higher prices in France, bringing back other livestock and all sorts of goods that Spain was short of at that time.  A skilled raconteur (and lady’s man) .he  enthralls us with his stories of how he also helped Portuguese exiles over the border, many of whom had been stranded on the wrong side of the Bidasoa river by mercenary people traffickers who lost their nerve on the final few kilometres of border crossing.  Not only did he amaze the journalists that come out this February (the 4-kilos-of-gold-on-Lesaka bridge story had us all on the edge of our seat) but it appears he has won over my daughter too! Off riding with him next week …. no end of material here to put on a Walking & Smuggling Week in the area.

Spanish, Basque, German and English friends at home at my curry party June 2010.

Words are not the only tools of communication, and failing to be aware of the differences between cultures, their traditions and values, can sometimes cause far greater misunderstanding than any linguistic shortcomings. Living in France and Italy I adapted effortlessly to the tradition of greeting each other with kisses on the cheek. In some places it was two, in some three and in others, people were insulted if you didn’t give them four! I don’t think I ever quite worked out which region gave which number of kisses but the important thing was to take my cue from other people and be ever ready to exchange a kiss or two.  

God knows what the Danes thought of me when I moved to Copenhagen several years later. Here, a common greeting between friends and colleagues is the hug. Jowl to jowl in firm Viking clamps, it is never easy to see exactly what goes on and (much to my embarrassment now) I never even stopped to think. I imagine that I kissed more Danish men during my years in Copenhagen than most Danish women have in their entire life! Although, in this case, my lack of understanding of social customs left me unscathed, it is easy to see how cultural insensitivity can lead to embarrassment, even offence. What irritates me is not so much the fact that I didn’t know this custom but that I wasn’t receptive enough to pick it up. After years of kissing the Danes I still failed to notice that none of them were kissing me!  

There are many areas where potential misunderstandings can arise. Here are some of the major arenas for cultural differences and forewarned is hopefully forearmed.  

Areas of potential cultural misunderstanding  

1.           Greetings  

How do people greet each other? How much, and what type of physical contact is involved? How does this differ according to the relationships between people?  

2.         Dress  

What is the usual dress code for work, dinners ‘en famille’ or at a restaurant? How do people dress at religious festivals or on holy days? Is revealing certain parts of the body seen as disrespectful? For example, you can’t to go into some churches in Italy with bare shoulders but you can go topless on some of the beaches.  

3.         Food and drink  

How are people seated round a table? Who is served first? Who starts? Are there any ritualistic salutations or ceremonies connected to eating or drinking?  

In Sweden people don’t usually start their wine at a meal until their host has raised a toast and looked them solemnly in the eye for three seconds.  

4.         Money  

Who pays? Can you barter? Should you pay a tip? How is the subject of money addressed? Is it talked about openly or considered an ‘unsavoury’ subject? Many years ago I remember paying for a day’s history tour of Copenhagen. Before we left, the lecturer gave an introductory talk on the day; on the places of architectural wonder we would visit, the palaces and cathedrals and (his talk reached its climax) a café where we could buy a cheap cup of coffee! To the other extreme, when paying a large restaurant bill at my local restaurant in Spain, I received wounded stares from Teresa, the owner, when I even ventured a glance at the arithmetic.  

5.         Relationships between males and females  

Do men address women differently than they address other men? Is there a set protocol for the way men should treat women in public? Or women should treat men? In Northern Europe opening a door for women can sometimes be risky affair as some women are likely to interpret it as an act of chauvinism. In Southern Europe, not doing so is more likely to be interpreted as bad manners.  

6.         Present giving  

When are you expected to give a gift? What type of gifts are considered appropriate? In Mediterranean countries people more often tend to bring flowers and chocolates for the host of a dinner party than a bottle of wine.  

7.         Business relationships  

Do you treat your superiors differently from your colleagues and subordinates? Do the different levels of the corporate hierarchy mix socially? How and where is  business conducted? Who makes the decisions?  

I remember an incident when an English man visited a German company in the hope of winning a contract. He was finally given it, and invited all the staff out for a celebratory drink. The following Monday he learned that the contract had been cancelled and only months later learned why. The directors of the German company had seem him fraternise with the lower ranks and had come to mistrust him.  

Although, in Western Europe, the differences between cultures are not as radical as they are between different continents, they still exist. It is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by the ubiquitous Gucci shoes or mobile telephones, yet behind the modern veneer of western cultures lie thousands of years of history. Religion, wars, political upheaval, immigration, geography all leave lasting fingerprints on cultures, and on people’s values and perceptions. What may seem a superficial ritual to the outsider, to the insider may be an important symbol of respect.  

One of the greatest skills we can learn when we travel is to be discerning; to watch, observe and listen. A few hours spent in a café in the centre of town observing the people who pass by may be as useful to your overall communication skills as tackling the next irregular verb!

Making hay while the sun shines

Amatxi and Atautxi on their farm, Zubialdea, in Ameztia.

 Today, as I sit on the terrace, with the rain clouds racing in overhead, I attempt to record all that Amatxi, Atauxi and Isidro told me about farming with the moon. Not only are certain crops planted during certain phases of the moon, but the moon also seems to affect the decision when to cut firewood, sheer sheep, kill pigs and conceive babies!  It appears that most vegetables i.e. potatoes, tomatoes, beans, chard etc. are planted during a waning moon so that these plants can first spread outwards before putting energy into growing upwards. When it comes to the cutting of trees for firewood, Atautxi said that the shape of the leaves makes a difference as to which trees are cut when. Trees with smooth, rounded leaves, such as beech and walnut, should be cut on a waning moon whereas trees with leaves with separate protruding fingers (for want of a more technical word) are better cut when the moon is waxing.  This would include woods from oak, chestnut and ash trees for example. He continued by saying that if you cut beach during the wrong phase of the moon, you will find the wood  more pinkish in colour and more humid, making far less effective firewood than the whiter, drier, version of beech wood that you get if you cut it at the right time. As for cutting hair there are notably more customers at the  barbers during a waning moon which is supposed to stop it growing back more quickly.   

 When I asked about the sheering of sheep, (remembering a time when, to my horror, I went to pick up my daughter, Marion, and found that she had been shorn along with the sheep – a week short of a photographer arriving to take ‘pretty’ photos of us for an article in Living Spain Magazine), it appeared that they too are shorn on a waning moon.   

 One of the main ceremonies here in the late Autumn months around the date of San Martin (11th November) is the matanza, the annual ritual of killing the pig, where all the parts are used to make conserves for the winter months. The whole family congregates to make jamon, (ham), lomo (pork cuts), morcilla (blood pudding) and chistora (a spicy Basque sausage - made with a sort of sewing-maching-like contraption with a snout on the end (not unakin to Marion’s Plastercine shape-factory) onto which, condom-like,  pigs intestines are inserted).  Pigs trotters and intestines are all salvaged. Luckily for me the pig’s liver is also saved. Fried pig’s liver with onion and parsley was once considered a speciality; an honour served up for almuerzo, brunch, to the head of the household (i.e. Atautxi) on the day of the mantanza. As no one in Zubialdea really likes liver that honour is now saved for l’Inglesa; Amatxi hovering by the window to catch me on my way back home with an enormous frying pan simmering on the stove.          

My neighbours' farm, Zubialdea.

 During the mantanza, the whole extended family comes over to help and the day is spent washing intestines and mixing strange parts in big bowls. (Sagrario, my neighbour on another farm, Sumbillanea, admits that it is the worst day of the year for her as the house and yard are slowly covered in blood and gore.) Nevertheless, this is an important moment and (happily) it is not everyone who is imbued with the skills of slitting the pig’s throat and so one man may be asked to ‘do the honours’ at several farms. I remember a complex phone call to Isidro last year trying to coordinate as many matanzas on as many farms as possible during the phase of the waning moon in November. The waning moon here seems to have a positive effect on how the blood binds together with the spices to  form good solid chorizos ( I am a bit lost with the other explanations).    

And then, just as we were clearing the table after the merienda, Atauxi came up with one of his favorite subjects. Did I know that if you conceive a child during a waning moon it will be a boy, and during a waxing moon it will be a girl? Given all the other work supposedly going on during a waning moon (and the fact that Amatxi and Atautxi have 5 sons and just I daughter) it gives the impression that Atautxi may have reneged on some of his other  duties.      

The Romance Languages

For a start, the majority of English words ending in ‘- ion’, ‘- ary’, ‘- ible/ -able’ and ‘-ant/ -ent’  are very similar in all Romance languages:   administration:  amministrazione (It), administration (F), administración (Sp)   

  necessary:        necessario (It),  nécessaire (F), necesario (Sp)   

  possible:           possible (It),  possible (F),  possible (Sp)   

  probable:         probabile (It), probable (F), probable (Sp)   

 constant:          constante (It), constant (F), constante (Sp)   

 present:            presente (It),  present (F), presente (Sp)    

 Understanding which words tend to be similar in English and the Romance languages gives you an immediately vocabulary of over a 1000 words in French, Italian and Spanish.   

 Here are some more examples of words easily recognised from one Romance language to the next:   

school:             scuola (It), école (F), escuela (Sp)  

castle:              castello (It), château (F), castilla (Sp)   

escape:             scappare (It), échapper (F), escapar (Sp)   

 cost:                 costa (It), côte (F), costa (Sp)   

 visit:                visitare (It) visiter (F) visitar (Sp)   

 Changes in spelling.

 Looking at the previous sets of words we can see that each language has put its own  fingerprints on the original Latin words. Certain consonants change predictably from one language to the next – often because their sounds are very close, and easily distorted by changes in accent and spelling. Once you know which consonants are likely to differ from the English – or switch between themselves – you should find it easier to detect the ultimate similarities between words.  

The ph – f – changes:   

pharmacy:        farmacia (It), pharmacia (F), farmacia (Sp)   

telephone:        telefono (It), tèlèphone (F), telèfono (Sp)    

 The b – v – p – f  changes: 

lips:      labbro (It), lèvre (F), labio (Sp)   

hair (chevelure):  capelli (It), cheveux (F), cabellos (Sp)    

fish:     pesce (It), pêche (F), pez (Sp)    

The c – ch – k  changes: 

change:  cambiare (It), changer (F), cambiar (Sp)    

 kitchen:           cucina (It), cuisine (F), cocina (Sp)    

 The Spanish ‘e’ 

Where the French tend to omit an ‘s’ at the beginning of the words and replace it with an é, the Spanish have a tendency to simply prefix the word with an e.   

 escuela – school                       estado – state    

 estudiar - to study                   estrangular - to strangle             

 False friends 

Just to ‘rock the apple cart’ of ‘set the cat among the pigeons’ here are a few ‘false friends’ or falsos amigos.  Even though they obviously cause translation problems, it is possible to see how the concepts are linked. Check the English word with its meaning in Spanish. Creatively seeking links between words and concepts is an important part of language learning.    

 Faux amis     

 constipated   -   constipado (Sp) ( to have a cold)            

 molest   -   molestar (Sp)  (to disturb someone)                   

 sensible   -   sensibile (Sp)  (sensitive)                    

 embarrassed   -   embarazada (Sp) ( pregnant)      

 eventually   -    eventualmente (Sp)  (possibly)     

 parent   -   pariente (Sp)  (relative)     

 assist – assistir (Sp) (to attend a meeting etc.)      

 preservative – preservativo (Sp) (condom)     

 sympathetic – simpatico (Sp) (nice, friendly)     

 disgust – disgust (Sp)  (annoyance)     

 Lateral thinking   With many other words the connection to English is not always so clear. But be flexible in your thinking and explore any vocabulary that may be distantly related to the same concept. You will often find that a word of similar origin comes out of hiding. Look at the following:     

 Sleep –  dormir (Sp) (In English we say:  ‘dormant’ volcano)     

 Horse –  caballo (Sp) – a ‘chivalrous cavalier’     

Goat – cabra (Sp) – the first sign of the zodiac is ‘Capricorn’      

Friend: – amigo (Sp) – an ‘amicable agreement’