¿Habla Español?
by Fernando Pagés
Ruiz
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I learned to speak Spanish as
a baby; I learned English later, when my family immigrated to
New York City. My mother spoke both languages at home, so I
grew up bilingual. Nevertheless, my first encounters with
construction-site Spanish made me feel as if I had traveled to
a foreign country. This was because many of the techniques used
in our building industry — including wood framing, vinyl
siding, and drywall — are unique to the United States. To
facilitate job-site conversation, Spanish-speaking workers in
the U.S. have had to develop local words and expressions that
can't be found in conventional Spanish/English dictionaries,
making it tough for native Spanish-speakers to understand one
another.
It can be even more difficult for an English speaker to learn
job-site Spanish. Although you may have aced high school
Spanish, I'm sure you never learned vocabulary like rapear (dry
wrap this opening) and joistear (roll joists). But if you want
to communicate effectively with this rapidly growing segment of
the American work force, you'll need to learn the basics of the
Spanish language and train your ear to understand the local
construction dialect.
Why bother? Consider the numbers: According to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, persons of "Hispanic origin" make up one of
the fastest growing worker groups in the U.S. Their number
— 13.6 million in 2000 — has increased 65 percent
since 1980, a rate of growth four times that of the
"non-Hispanic" work force. Spanish is the native language of
nearly 18 percent of all construction workers in the U.S.; in
New Mexico, Texas, and Southern California, almost half of the
home-building work force speaks Spanish.
Learning the language and culture of your co-workers and
employees — and perhaps your next boss — can
improve your crew's productivity and job-site safety while
giving you an opportunity to build new friendships. In other
words, knowing Spanish adds a practical and versatile tool to
your toolbox.
Developing an Ear
You don't have to memorize verb endings and noun genders to
begin building an understanding of a new language. Just do what
babies do when they learn to talk: Listen. Tuning in to a
Spanish-language radio station on your way to work and
discovering music that you enjoy with Latin lyrics can start
developing your ear. Watching Spanish-language television can
add another building block; the visual cues will help you
decipher the language in context. Just by opening your ears,
you'll allow your brain to do what humans do best —
decipher speech.
Within a couple of months, you'll be able to catch the drift
of basic sentences and perhaps begin peppering your job-site
banter with Spanish words and phrases. Of course, fluency will
take a lot longer, but for most of us, that level of mastery
isn't necessary. Your objective isn't fluency, but practical
communication.
As you become familiar with the cadence of Spanish, you'll
begin to better understand the broken English of heavily
accented Latinos. This means your ear is recognizing new speech
patterns. Even when you don't understand the words, you'll have
a sense of the conversation's meaning when you hear Spanish
dialogue, and you'll start to distinguish familiar sounds and
expressions and correlate them with tone and body language. By
instinct, your ear will lead you to a fuzzy but slowly
clarifying sense of comprehension — and your tongue will
follow closely behind.
Developing Your Tongue
Just as babies learn language by listening, they also learn by
babbling. This is tough for adults, who feel embarrassed by
tongue-tied attempts to pronounce foreign words. But there's no
choice: You have to practice your Spanish aloud.
When I coach someone in conversational Spanish, I don't teach
them a random assortment of words. I start by teaching them the
tricky aspects of Spanish pronunciation: the five vowel and
consonant sounds that differentiate Latin-based languages from
English.
While English vowels have multiple sounds, Spanish vowels have
only one. For example, the "a" in ape sounds different from the
"a" in apple; the "u" in umbrella sounds different from the "u"
in duty. In Spanish, vowels sound dry by comparison. Latinos
always pronounce the letter "a" as ‘ah,' and the letter
"u" as ‘oo.' Nothing distinguishes an English accent as
much as the lilting vowels, so try to learn the Latin vowels:
‘Ah, eh, ee, oh, oo.' In Spanish, a vowel sounds the same
regardless of context: taco, pato, coco. The "o" never
changes.
Next, tackle the five characteristically Spanish consonants.
These include "h," the easiest to learn because it's always
silent, as in hola (hello), pronounced ‘ola.' The Spanish
"j" sounds like the English "h," as in jalapeños. The
double "ll" in martillo (hammer) sounds like a "y" in English:
"mar-ti-yo." Spanish has one letter not used in English, an "n"
with a squiggle on top — the ñ. The weather
phenomenon known as El Niño offers a good example of how
to pronounce this letter.
The double "rr" is the only one tough to learn unless you know
how to trill your tongue, but if you can't roll your r's, it's
okay to stick with the English pronunciation. For example, you
could ask for a sierra (saw) by pronouncing the word
"see-air-rah," and I'm reasonably confident a Latino colleague
won't hand you a martillo instead.
Don't spend too much time trying to sound like a native; you
don't have to become fluent to communicate effectively. If you
come close, everyone will understand you. To help you gain
proficiency, there are more than 500 different Spanish audio
courses on cassette tape or CD to choose from, which allow you
to practice in the privacy of your own pickup (see sidebar,
"Resources for Learning Job-Site Spanish," beginning on
page2).
Lost in Translation
Once you start exploring Spanish, you'll eventually find
yourself in a sounds-alike/means-something-different
situation.
For example, tell a co-worker you feel embarazado, and he or
she may blush, too, given you just declared you feel pregnant.
The correct word in Spanish would have been avergonzado. To
avert future embarrassment, it pays to know a few of the
translation pitfalls up-front.
I recently fell into an obvious lost-in-translation error
despite knowing better. In Spanish, the phrase no vá
doesn't mean something new, but rather "does not go," or "does
not run" (it wasn't a Latino who named the Chevy Nova). While
pointing at boxes of Novabrik, a mortarless masonry product, I
instructed my siding guys where to install it on the house.
When I returned to the job later in the day, I found that they
had specifically avoided these areas. When I questioned my crew
leader, he asked me what I had been drinking, since I had given
specific orders that the product I pointed to "does not go" (no
vá) there.
Other common mistakes include asking your crew to follow
dirección, which refers not to instructions or orders,
but to a street address (the proper word is
instrucción). You might ask a co-worker to mark a stud
layout using the word marca, which actually means a brand name,
such as Ford or Chevy. On the other hand, el marco would refer
to the door jamb. You wouldn't aplicar for a job, since this
refers to smear or spread as in glue or paint; the correct term
for soliciting employment would be solicitar.
Even more subtle, you may find yourself giving offense when you
don't mean to. Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Costa Ricans all
consider themselves to be Americans, a term that people from
the U.S. sometimes reserve for themselves (better to say
Estadounidense, or United States-ian). You will also find that
Bolivians, Nicaraguans, Argentineans, and all other Latin
Americans prefer to be known by their country of origin than by
the generic "Hispanic." In fact, "Hispanic" technically refers
to those born on the island of Hispaniola, which comprises
Haiti and the Dominican Republic. If you need to use a generic
term to refer to your Spanish-speaking colleagues, call them
Latinos.
Finally, because Spanish speakers come from so many countries,
you'll find that while they all speak Spanish, they don't all
sound alike. Just as English varies from New England to New
Orleans and from Ireland to Australia, Spanish varies even
more. This means that expressions you learn on a job site in
New York may not translate in Miami. What's more, what you
learn on the job site usually represents a mix of provincial
Spanish and regional English, especially when English words do
not have an easy one-word translation. For example, instead of
saying El muro en seco, which takes too long, most
Spanish-speaking workers will say dry-vol (drywall). But a
Latino working on the East Coast, where many people still refer
to drywall as Sheetrock, might say el shee-ro.
Confusing? Welcome to Spanglish, soon to become the most widely
spoken language on job sites across the country. As you develop
your skills, keep in mind that what you want to learn is not so
much the language as the means of communicating across the
language barrier. In addition to words and phrases, take full
advantage of facial expressions, hand gestures, and tone of
voice. A friendly smile, a laugh, and the occasional scowl
translate with no dictionary required.
Fernando Pagés Ruizis a building contractor in Lincoln,
Neb.