Panama Real Estate Investment Travel Information


Learning Spanish

(6 votes)

Written by Matt Landau

Wednesday, May 16 2007

Roughly 55% of words in Spanish are polysemous, meaning they have two or more parts of speech, and each part of speech can have two or more meanings. For this reason, the goal for an expat in Panama, should not be to speak at a native rate of speed, but rather, try to avoid making a complete fool out of yourself.

There is a great difference between trying to learn a language in a classroom and actually living in a foreign country. First and foremost, being outside the classroom denies you the opportunity to cheat.

When I first decided to move to a foreign country, Spain, I was nineteen years old and cultural immersion for me was synonymous with plentiful breasts, underage drinking, and a new-found, almost renegade type of freedom. It was during this period of independence I realized that unfortunately I didn’t know as much as I once thought, and frequently found myself frustrated at restaurants and cafes screaming my version of Spanish (what I now realize must have sounded bird calls) until someone understood.

Over the course of my epoch in Spain which segued like a slinky into my time in Central America, my Spanish slowly but surely came to resemble a dialect officially recognized by the United Nations. My sentence structure improved, my accent evolved, and the once-bizarre mess of words that seeped out of my mouth actually started to make sense.

My vocabulary grew specialized to the things I cared the most about. I began using words like garrote (instrument for strangling criminals) and marcapasos (pacemaker) as commonly as hola and gracias. Panamanians took joy in the fact that, even if I was pronouncing it wrong, a gringo knew the Spanish word for crackhead.

Necessity is most certainly the mother of invention, and you can bet I was coming up with some of my own words when needed. The first and most important learning took place in the primal categories. For example, I needed to learn how to order food if I wanted to eat. I needed to successfully communicate with my landlord if I wanted a place to sleep. I needed to gather some pick up lines if I wanted to come off as a modern day Hispanic Fabio.

In Panama, English is spoken pretty widely, probably because the US occupied the isthmus for so long. It is best to learn the local language though by immersing yourself in it: which means eating, drinking, and sleeping Spanish. Hanging out with just expats won’t help this much, so make an effort to find some Panamanian friends. Trying to read the local newspaper can be daunting, but if anything, you can pretend to do so and come off as smart to people nearby.

If, as a visitor, you make an effort to learn Spanish, locals will respect you a whole lot more. If, on the other hand, you refuse even to learn the words for “I would like” and “check please”, chances are you won’t make any friends. After all, us Americans think we are the only creatures on the planet and that because we’ve decided to grace a country with our presence (be it on vacation or just passing through), everything should revolve around our Hawaiian shirt-wearing torsos.

So be patient. Spanish won’t come to you over night. But if you make an honest and considerate effort to learn, try your best to roll the tongue, and throw in a fun word here or there, you’ll adjust to Spanish in Panama just fine.