So you might have problems rolling your ah’s.
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Doesn’t stop my theory from being false.
Yea it’s 90% likely to be some kind of racist troll attempt.
Yeah I consider anything in LA to just be liberal paradise. I now there’s some old money in some areas, but even then it feels more like Romney types to me, and I can live with that. Surprised El Segundo is Bushy to you. Seemed chill to me with a lot of Hispanic people, so I would have thought pretty liberal. I think you’re just spoiled out there in California!
I’m not really planning on it, my problem is I’d go from probably a top 5% salary for my age to bottom 20% if I moved, as I’m not sure of anywhere that I could play live poker for a living and make anywhere near as much as here. Only possibility would be the UK that I know of.
Lo siento, pero yo se solamente un poquito Espanol.
Low see-en-toe, per-oh, yo say sole-uh-men-tay oohn poh-kee-toh ess-pan-yole.
“I’m sorry, but I only know a little Spanish.” (or something close to that, I’m not fluent)
Most people who speak any English will be happy you tried and switch to English or you.
I loved Madrid and Barcelona when I visited. Very underrated country for food, it’s delicious. Very laid back/chill culture, they enjoy life. Relatively low percentage of Spaniards speak English nationwide, compared to other Western European countries, but in Madrid and Barcelona you’ll find a fair number - especially among young people working in hotels, restaurants, bars, etc.
On that note, “Una cerveza por favor.”
oohn-uh sare-vaze-uh poor fuh-voor
“One beer, please.”
You can order a beer and apologize for not speaking Spanish, I think you’re in! My work here is done.
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Smart group, so I assume most know this:
Castilian ‘lisp’
A persistent urban legend claims that the prevalence of the sound /θ/ in Spanish can be traced back to a Spanish king who spoke with a lisp, and whose pronunciation spread by prestige borrowing to the rest of the population. This myth has been discredited by scholars for lack of evidence.[9] Lundeberg (1947) traces the origins of the legend back to a chronicle of Pero López de Ayala stating that Peter of Castile “lisped a little” (" ceceaba un poco "). However he reigned in the 14th century and the sound /θ/ began to develop in the 16th century (see below). Moreover, it is clear that a true lisp would not give rise to the systematic distinction between /s/ and /θ/ that characterizes Standard Peninsular pronunciation. For example, a lisp would lead one to pronounce both siento (‘I feel’) and ciento (‘hundred’) the same (as [θjento]) whereas in standard peninsular Spanish they are pronounced [ˈsjento] and [ˈθjento], respectively.
For native speakers of seseo varieties of Spanish, in which /θ/ is absent, the presence of this phoneme in European speakers does not appear strange. However, it might be striking for learners of Spanish in North America, where people are more familiar with seseo pronunciation, and indeed gives an impression of “lispiness”. The misnomer “Castilian lisp” is used occasionally to refer to this aspect of Peninsular pronunciation (in both distinción and ceceo varieties).
I did not know that the king thing was an urban legend tho. I erroneously thought that was the case.
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I had no idea where you were coming from with that lisp thing, so I just made another joke to deflect.
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Spent the night using Ancestry to look for an escape hatch. The closest option I have is a Great Great in Ireland and a Great Great in Spain. Neither of these options are applicable. We may have a Great in Italy on my wife’s side, but that one is really hard to both prove and to use to establish citizenship.
Sigh.
It’s an expensive and not so trivial process to get a passport in most European countries based on ancestry. I’ve briefly looked into a Polish passport (two of my grandparents were born there) and I wasn’t even close to being able to meet their requirements. It also involves some luck in how well documented your (great) grandparents were.
Disculpa. Mi espaňol es horrible.
“Sorry. My Spanish is horrible.”
Make sure to roll the double r. And all Spanish words stress the next to last syllable unless the accent is elsewhere. So stress the “ri” in “horrible”.
Guess I’m still B1 level.
Before you say it, I couldn’t get the n with the tilde on it.
Also, I don’t do the lisp. I was never taught to do it in America because I wasn’t taught Castilian Spanish.
The passport itself doesn’t take long. The citizenship, on the other hand, can take forever depending on the country. It took years for my former colleagues to get Italian citizenship via ancestry. It took me a couple of years to get Irish citizenship because it took 9 months to get one document from the Department of State (my grandmother’s expired Irish passport) . And that was during the Obama administration, not the underemployed DoS under the Trump administration.
Once I got the necessary paperwork on my side, the process was a lot shorter than I expected. I heard that there’s a huge backlog on Irish citizenship applications since Brexit though.
yeah, I guess it’s kinda literal translation of how we say it here. The process of getting a citizenship.
Nobody with a wife should join the unstuck commune unless the demographics change a lot.
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It took me a couple of days in Madrid to start doing it, and it was like the cheat code to getting the club promoters to leave us alone. “No, gracias!” and they keep harassing you. “No, grathias!” and they’re outta there and on to the next… I guess they assume an American who knows enough about the language to speak\ with a lisp isn’t a good mark.
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Interesting one… A quick search says you can buy Thai residency for $15,900. You won’t be able to get in on their healthcare system like the citizens, but you can buy insurance for about $200 to $700 per… year. Again that’s a quick Google search. Sounds like most expats pay for outpatient stuff out of pocket because it’s so cheap, and the insurance covers inpatient care.
Home prices in Chiang Mai can be as low as $90,000 USD and as high as a few hundred thousand, again based on quick Google searching.
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Yes.
Before heading for what might seem like the land of milk and honey compared with the current US#666 people need to realise that some parts of the EU, particularly Eastern Europe, are probably worse on average when it comes to overt racism and bigotry in general, as they lack the large liberal enclaves that insulate people from the worst of it.
It’s true that not having conversational language skills will also do the same, but it will still be obvious from how different ethnic groups live and are treated that racism is a huge problem in some EU countries.
I’d use a Baltic passport to move to a western or southern country pdq.
Those considering Spain would do well to consider how climate change is likely to make the interior even less hospitable during summer, and aim for the north or the coasts, preferably not the southern resorts.
Is Madrid that bad in the summer? I guess I went in the spring.
Club promoters? I guess you’re referring to touts in touristy areas?
I’m the least Spanish-looking person in existence and I never had to deal with pesky advertisers regardless of my speaking ability. One “No thanks” regardless of language backs them off. Then again, I’m a pretty big guy. I suppose if I was shorter and skinnier they’d be more persistent.
Also, I almost never went to the center of any city I lived in. Too expensive and touristy.
Yes. I posted some stories about racism in the CR in the Covid19 thread. If you’re black, Muslim, or a traveller (Roma), life is hard here. If you’re white and not Russian-speaking, you won’t have much of a problem.
That said, Prague is the liberal enclave here. It’s the only part of the country where a left-wing administration runs the local government.
I was thinking more of the south, like Seville, which is too hot even for the locals who generally live in the hills outside.
Absolutely. Andalucia is nightmarish regarding temperature.
Most people who live in Spain don’t stay in Spain during the entire summer. Small businesses outside of tourist areas close down because of it.
I have it really good in the US, or I did, with two jobs that are perfect for me. But I do feel like it’s go time, from a selfish point of view.
Just turned 40 and am seriously considering getting on the TEFL track despite my advanced age, pending whatever happens to that job market like all others. As long as I can earn enough to pay all of my bills, I don’t really need to save anything. I’ve got over a decade of teaching experience but not language so I’m not sure that counts for anything.
Ideally I’d like to use it to travel to different countries, obviously with the option of settling down if I find a place/job I like. It’s not just the American political landscape that’s pushed me here. I don’t like settling in one place and I haven’t traveled as much as I want. I’m also aware that people tend to disavow themselves of wanderlust after doing it for awhile.
Anyways, subscribing. I should probably PM Bob.
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