Author: Kate Wilson

Choosing a Book in the Library

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

A friend in London mentioned to me that there are some famous Catalan crime writers who have been translated into English and who are worth reading.
I decided to have a look in the library and try to get one in Catalan

  I didn’t know any names so I asked the women who work there and who are usually very friendly.
” Can you help me?  Who are the most famous Catalan crime writers? The ones everyone wants to read and who have been translated into English?’
The answer – blank looks, shrugged shoulders, ‘No se’
Do you think that is strange? Perhaps crime fiction is more a British fascination? I could name you at least 10 crime writers in English while they couldn’t come up with one.
No problem. I love libraries and feel totally at home when I’m there. I started to go along the shelves looking at every book – except the ones on the bottom shelf which I am too lazy to bend down to!
But it’s not the same as looking in a library in the UK

1.     Some books are in Catalan. Some are in Castellano. Some are translations from other languages.
2.     There are helpful pictures on the spines so you can concentrate on the genre you want – I looked only at the guns and the Sherlock Holmes silhouettes

 3.       Once you find the genre, you look at the authors name – PD James – no. Ian Rankin – no. Francisco García Pavon – no because it sounds Spanish. Javier Calvo – that sounds promising and yes he is from Barcelona but no – it’s written in castellano! Some Catalan authors write in Spanish to reach a wider audience. But more and more the original version is in Catalan.     Teresa Solana – aha! She sounds interesting.
4.       Now I get to the part where I actually pull a book out of the stack. Ignoring large fat ones, I look at the first sentences and decide if it will be possible to get the gist without using a dictionary.
5.        Finally I decided on this one – the author is from Menorca and that is where the action happens.

Fifteen minutes before the library closes for lunch they begin to pipe music in through speakers on every floor. The first time this happened I thought someone had forgotten to turn off their mobile phone and was surprised that noone started to Shush!!! 

How can I resist?

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

This is not about chocolate or cakes.
But on my current theme of language.
I was watching a video of Manel on youtube which a kind friend sent to cheer me up and in the comments below someone wrote that they enjoyed the music but why couldn’t they just sing in castellano so more people could understand?
This made me think about resistance to learning Catalan and where better to start than with my own experience?


I came to Barcelona to learn Spanish. That is what I was already studying and that is what I wanted to practise. What a nuisance that all my new friends were talking Catalan – it was a constant frustration for me as I knew they spoke Castellano as well but they insisted on having conversations in Catalan which I couldn’t understand!
“Why don’t you learn Catalan if you are going to live here?”
NO! I can’t do two languages. I want a language that I can use when I go to Argentina to dance tango. Perhaps one day, but not now.
So far so typical, I think.
Then of course I met someone and fell in love and came to live outside of Barcelona in a town that is more Catalan speaking and I needed to survive in a new family as well as be able to make friends. Also if you really want to be intimate with someone I think it is best if you speak each others languages.
But still I resisted.
“One day when my ‘Spanish’ is better, then I’ll get started”
But meanwhile I was taking it in – I had to – I was sitting for hours listening to Catalan at home and at parties and in the street. People were kind – they switched to Castellano for me but soon enough I would be lost with that as well and they’d slip back into their normal language.
I got very depressed about it as I also wasn’t improving my ‘Spanish’.  I’d complain to friends about how hard it all was. To my mind Castellano had to come first and Catalan would follow…..sometime.
Occasionally people would say – ‘you have to start learning Catalan’ – and that would make me even more determined not to. I don’t like being pushed. Of course I was learning it even without trying – and that annoyed me too.
I remember the day it all changed. It was summer solstice last year and we were dancing on the terrace of a house in the middle of the woods. My friend Diana suddenly said – I think you should stop studying Castellano and concentrate on Catalan. I felt something solid inside me melt and soften and open up and I said Yes, that’s right.

From then on it has been easier and so much more enjoyable that I thought possible. I have always loved the sound of the language and now that I allow it in,  I am not using precious energy to resist it. I also believe I am connecting to a deeper level of language – reaching down to a place that is older and more communal that we can imagine. I read out loud and even when I don’t understand the words I get the gist – that’s magic isn’t it?
French helps too – the roots intertwined somewhere in the past.
A few weeks ago I went to visit an elderly woman called Pepa in Barcelona – she has a small flat in the Barri Gotic that I rented when I first came here more than 5 years ago. At that time I barely spoke Castellano and she knows no English. She was the first person to ask me if I would learn Catalan and I remember how alien the idea was. I knew almost nothing about Barcelona, Catalunya or the Catalan language. I still thought I was in Spain. I thought of Catalan as something similar to Gaelic or Welsh.
I hadn’t seen her since that first visit and so it was a great pleasure to call on her and start to speak in Catalan. We talked for about an hour and all the time I was thinking – I can’t believe this is me!
These memories serve as markers of the big change that has happened in my life and that I am still undergoing.

Immersion

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

For a week I only spoke Catalan at home. And in the shops and on the street with the other dog walkers that I met.  I read the newspaper in Catalan and listened to iCatfm and watched  tv3 which is the Catalan public television station.
Yes, there was a little English – phones calls to the UK, coffees with a friend in Granollers, and writing here.
Also I watched BBC1 a couple of times – there was a drama on for three nights which I got hooked into although I missed part three because of the football!!! (anyone know what the mystery was about?)
Oh and we went to see La Red Social at Granollers film club  – it’s the film about Facebook which of course was in English but had subtitles in Castellano.

So…how was it?

  • I enjoyed it and didn’t seem to be speaking any less
  • I started actually using the grammar we are learning in school – the subjunctive and past tenses and imperatives. ‘Passa’m la sal, sisplau’, ‘he estat 20 minuts corren al gimnàs’ i ‘desitjo una casa que tingui un jardi per les meves gosses’
  • I realised I haven’t got a handle on the use of pronouns yet
  • I still thought in English but I didn’t need to translate slowly before speaking. Some things seem to be more automatic. 
  • Words I didn’t know that I knew started to come to the surface
  • I tried to trust what was coming out of my mouth – sometimes it was wrong!
  • I felt a bit frustrated with how hard it is to understand people talking at a normal speed
  • The biggest thing to come out of it was a boost in confidence about speaking and learning Catalan. I surprised myself with how much I know.

So I have decided to continue for another week! thanks for supporting me

Also, thanks to all who have asked about the drawings – yes I am doing them on an application called whiteboard on my mobile phone. There would be more but I have had trouble saving them so have lost a few but hopefully will get this sorted in the next week. Must be that Spring energy – needing to do something different and new!

Virtual Vermut

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

It would be wonderful if we could meet up for a vermut today. For one thing the weather is beautiful. It is sunny and warm and the chilly wind has gone at last.
I could suggest a cafe in the Porxada but it is always quite busy there and to be honest today I would like some peace and quiet. This morning as I passed through the square there were hordes of children and inside the old market were rows and rows of tables with chess boards on top. A chess tournament was about to get going but I couldn’t stop to see what happened next.

I’d love to sit and have a relaxed drink in the sunshine but today I think I would let you do the talking. I am a bit tired – not physically but something about this Spring is wearying me. My head is full of questions and problems and although my brain tries to find solutions and to make plans for the future somehow the next day the same old things go round and round. I’m on a merry go round and can’t get off yet.
I’ve been thinking about acupuncture recently and how much I miss it. It was good to have a break – almost two years!!! – but now I want to get started again. I find myself thinking about the Five Elements and trying to make sense of what is happening in my life by using them as a guide.
For example, it is Spring and this is the time for making plans and thinking about the future. What are your objectives in the next week –  month – year? The organ associated with this is the Liver and this energy is very powerful – it is what makes life pulse with expectation and hope. It is what helps us grow and change and keep flexible in our lives.
But, I seem a little stuck this Spring. There are plans and there are hopes and dreams but I don’t know how to bring them into reality. I don’t know which direction to take. I am dithering and swithering.
I swing between optimism and bleakness. It’s not very comfortable!  Yesterday I stuck some needles in the Liver points so we will see what happens next.

So, I will continue to walk the path by the river looking at the little plants that grow in this unwelcoming environment, listen to the birds as they get things together for nest building and mating, continue going to the gym so that my energy doesn’t stagnate totally and just Hope and Trust.

I think Bodhi Chicklet has a bottle of vodka open so do pop over there and see what she is doing.
She’s always good for a laugh as well which is more than I can say for myself these days!

Vocabulary

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Two new phrases learned today – not sure how they are connected, if at all but they caught my fancy.

Mala Llet          Literally means bad milk. Someone  who has mala llet is an unpleasant character.            Shouting. Angry. Mean.       Tenir mala llet is permanent. Estar de mala llet is a passing bad humour.

Torracollons      Someone – it can be a man or a woman – who nags and complains and won’t get off your back about something.

And that reminds me of the one that Oreneta told me.

Tancat com una tomba   Shut like a tomb. Useful for describing adolescents in the grunting phase.

Bona Nit!