Learning street slang in Guarani... and other things.

For ten weeks during training, I had 3-4 hours of language class a day, five days a week. It was intense. I learned more in ten weeks than I imagined possible and our local language professors were even considerate enough to tell us the proper version and the actual version- I am well, thank you as opposed to, Good, you? However, there were also an unthinkable number of instances where the answer to a question was, It depends- Es depende. God how it depends!!!

Conversations with our training staff went something like this for 10 weeks:

"Will I have cell service?"

-It depends.

"Will I have a bathroom?"

-It depends.

"Is it safe for me to live alone? To run outside? To drink the water? To date a local? To give out my phone number? To talk on the phone in English in a public place? To drink alcohol? To wear shorts? To wear blue? To wear red? To wear gold jewelry? To use this word?"

-It depends.

And now that I am in site, independent of trainers holding my hand, friends scratching my back and language professors telling me the difference between the vulgar version and the proper version of the word, all of those wishy-washy aspects of my life are being cleared up- quickly

How do I know when I've made a social snafu? A Paraguayan says to me, Around here, we........ (fill in the social norm that I was previously unaware of). They are a very indirect people and therefore it's possible to ask them what is going on- they will just say, I don't know. Instead, you have to wait and see what goes on. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting....

The latest cultural challenge: Learning the slang version of this language, Guarani. All of the helpful phrases we learned during training, all in "formal" Guarani, are barely comprehensible to these people who have been speaking it since they were in the womb and informalizing since the same second. Now, at first, this really irritated me and I kept saying to myself, That's not the right way to ask what someone is doing!!

That question in particular - what are you doing? - was my first slang accomplishment. For once, I heard the words for what they meant, not for how they should be pronounced and I answered reflexively instead of stewing over it first.

Formal Guarani for "what are you doing?":

Mbae'pa rejapohina

Slang/actual Guarani for "what are you doing?":

Mba'ejapo

But I can't complain too much because when it comes to abusing a language, American-English speakers are about as bad as it gets. We go from,

What are you doing?

, to

Whatcha doin?

It's inevitable that every language becomes shortened, abbreviated and the significance of words change over the course of time but when it's come to abuse, American-English speakers are Mike Turner on a bad day. We are negligent of the rules and thoroughly beaten our mother tongue to a bloody mess. And thus I thank my great-great grandmother Herrietta for coming to US from Germany  in 1865 so that I learned English as my first language because I sure as hell wouldn't have the perseverance to learn it as a second.