Posted on 02/23/2012 4:46:48 PM PST by max americana
Right after lunch, I met up with my Filipino bud whose girlfriend will be working at this Sunday's Oscar's telecast for a local television crew from ABC. We were close to Union station in L.A. and we were talking how much gas it costs to get to Anaheim and I told him there was A train that costs $7 to Anaheim. He didn't believe me so we went to the Metrolink window..
There was a black lady from Metrolink who did not understand the mexican woman who INSISTED that someone there speak spanish to her. The employee looked around and found no one. Then he looked at my pal and asked 'SIR, DO YOU SPEAK SPANISH?"
HIM: Why are you looking at me for?" HER: "I thought.. HIM" I thought what? Because I looked like a mexican? I'm an Asian guy" HER: "Oh so .."
HIM: "oh Ok, I get it. You try to accommodate her because she couldn't speak a word of English but if I spoke to you in Tagalog (Filipino), will you give me the same treatment? Here's a great idea...let's ALL try to speak English here shall we?"
Now at the back, some hispanics resented what he said and I thought I'm gonna be in a brawl...
LATINO GUY: "Hey man, that sounded racist.." HIM: "Dude, why don't you speak Tagalog? Why are the rest of us supposed to pick Spanish? You bitch about MULTI-CULTURALISM..MULTI meaning many. Or maybe multi-cultural meaning Spanish only?.."
>> Huh? I know several Philippians who speak Spanish. <<
I thought Philippians was written in Greek. ;^D
I am claiming predictive spelling on my (not so) smart phone. I am not claiming personal responsibility. (I wish we could edit our posts.) ;-)
Lol this is too funny
You got that right. I AM Filipino and I don’t speak Spanish (even after taking 2 years of it in high school). There are a lot of Spanish words adopted into Tagalog, but speak pure Spanish to a Filipino and they won’t understand you.
Actually, I tried watching a Filipino chick flick at home and my husband got frustrated because the dialog went back and forth between English and Tagalog (or Taglish, as it’s been called) so he couldn’t completely tune it out (He speaks only English). There’s a lot of English spoken in casual conversations between Filipinos, more so than a Spanish word here or there.
BTW, I’m with your buddy. I HATE when people ask me if I speak Spanish and I HATE it when I get asked if I speak English. Oddly enough, I got asked that while I was still living in California. I’ve only been asked that once in my 17 years of living in Arizona. I immigrated here legally when I was 10 years old. I speak English exclusively, and though I can still understand Tagalog, it feels very unnatural for me to speak it.
I insist on being spoken to in Esperanto. I figure if I hear enough, I’ll eventually learn it.
Marcos had the foresight to insist English be taught to everyone in the schools. I think under him it was the, or one of the, national languages. At any rate, they obviously did a good job as most urban Phillipinos speak excellent English ever since he was in power.
That may be part of the problem. It is my understanding that Spanish rule was not well received by the Filipinos.
OTOH there are some words borrowed from Spanish. The Tagalog word for horse is "kabayo". Also, a lot of names look Spanish.
I was on a job in South America. The american guys for the most part didn’t speak spanish, so any local that spoke english was automatically foreman. But then they recruited about a hundred filipinos to come there as techs on the assumption that, since they had spanish surnames, they would speak spanish.
They didn’t, of course. So they would take direction from the american in english, then take the guys outside and deliver the instructions in sign language and pantomime.
But they also started spanish classes among themselves in the evenings, and sure enough within three or four months they were surprisingly able to get by in the language. Their american bosses never knew the difference.
It was funny, but also impressive.
Sort of related -
About 30 years ago some friends and I were partying in the middle of the day.
So - we run out of beer - and go to get more. My friend - sort of Portuguese/American - but whose only Spanish was getting bad grades in High School
So - we go in this liquor store. We are under age - but usually a little bravado, and I could get us through. So - the gal starts talking to my friend in Spanish - assuming - well - we were in kind of hispanic neighborhood, and he looks, well - kind of hispanic - so she thought he was a local. I was paying attention to something else - wasn’t really watching him. And he is sort of standing there - and he looks at me with this terrified face - and starts rubbing his eyes - and acting all weird -
He could not figure out what she was saying! It took me like pause pause - I didn’t really understand what was going on. What the heck is going on - this gal is jabbering in Spanish, and Jim has this weird look on his face ... Then - I’m saying Jim! - Jim! - she’s just speaking Spanish you idiot! He had this crazed look on his face. Priceless!
He thought he was so drunk he couldn’t understand English anymore!
All time classic.
The trouble with your friend is, he LOOKS like he should speak Spanish! ;)
That’s why he grew his hair long. Now in L.A. Latinos shave their heads, grow a stache’ which is stereotypical. He’s pretty much had it to here’ LOL.
People assumed because he’s not white, he’s automatically a Democrat. Well..that’s another story I can post as he basically shamed this white liberal once who had an anti-Bush shirt. The lib just did not have any comebacks while I was sneering beside him...
But not all of them do and those that speak Spanish often speak it because the Spanish forced their ancestors to speak it and forced their Spanish culture on the native Filipino culture. Which adds to the irony that a native Spanish speaker would proclaim that spekaing Spanish represents cultural liberation while for others the Spanish language could also be seen as a symbol of oppression and injustice. A kind of irony that miraculously manages to escape those whose goal is to be aperpetual victim.
*speaking Spanish
Do you know of posters here or close friends and acquaintances from Spanish Speakin countries, or whose families were from Spanish Speaking countries, who do consider themselves fiscally conservative and support restrictions on illegal immigration and who understand that the Arizona laws were not really designed for ethnic cleansing ?
“Actually, since the Phil. are a former Spanish colony, many DO speak Spanish.”
________________________________________
I live on Cebu, and have yet to find anyone that speaks Spanish. I will have to ask if they even teach Spanish in the schools. I doubt it.
Tagalog, from what I am told, is no longer the main language.
There are many different dialects throughout the Philippines.
Cebu is in Visayas, and the prominent language here is Visayan.
Everyone in the Philippines, however, seem to understand
each other.
Are some of those words curse words?
My late father used to tell a story about when he was stationed in the Phillipines. They were doing what they thought was road construction, when some Filipino guys came by and started ragging on the soldiers for being slave labor building a private driveway for MacArthur. My father spent his first 9 years in Argentina and said that even though the Spanish sounded different, it was understandable enough.
That story ended with dad confronting his Lt,saying he wasn’t there to benefit the General, throwing a punch and ending up in the stockade.
Are some of those words curse words?
My late father used to tell a story about when he was stationed in the Phillipines. They were doing what they thought was road construction, when some Filipino guys came by and started ragging on the soldiers for being slave labor building a private driveway for MacArthur. My father spent his first 9 years in Argentina and said that even though the Spanish sounded different, it was understandable enough.
That story ended with dad confronting his Lt,saying he wasn’t there to benefit the General, throwing a punch and ending up in the stockade.
Well, I guess you learn something new every day!
I sued to work with Filipinos at the downtown Hyatt Regency Sundry shop in Chicago in the mid-80s.
English was good, but to me it sounded like a Spanish accent.
I figured more would have rubbed off during a 300 year colonization as it did in most of Latin America.
Thanks for the gentle corrections, Freepers.
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