Today is Sunday, February 9 th 2025, and one of the tasks on my to-do list is updating this website. In this delivery, I wanted to share just how happy I am to be returning to one of my favorite activities, it is going to the cinema. I wanted to write about the four films I had watch during January and February, about my impressions, not that anyone really cares, but because they resonate so much with the past few months, the things that have unfolded before my eyes, the music I’ve listened to, and four sensations that dominate life.
Today I watched the movie Flow (trailer here), a film about animals that are very different and that also has no dialogue, nothing beyond the sounds the protagonists make (a cat, a capybara, a bird, a lemur, and a dog). Nevertheless, the movie is easy to watch. But why? Because you just have to look at the images and intuit a bit of the drama from the music, which in fact is scarcely present. Yes, the characters don’t speak, and you can simply let yourself be carried away by the visuals.
Then it all made sense. I wondered why I had stopped doing an activity I used to enjoy so much, since that activity had become somewhat challenging about a year or so ago. Watching movies without the Spanish subtitles.
I’m in a country where my native language isn’t spoken. Moreover, they speak a language that has little to do with the romance languages, so it’s complicated to understand sounds and phrases, they just don’t make sense. The international or English-speaking films shown in theaters have subtitles in a language that I understand only about 1%.
But anyway, I’ve returned to the cinema because, at some point, I started to feel more comfortable listening english. How’s that been going?
First I must say that I have never been known for my ability to learn languages quickly. I’ve been trying to learn English since I was a child. I took some breaks, especially during my teenage years. I think I felt a certain repulsion when people tried to use Anglicisms to sound cool in a native Spanish-languaje country. In addition, at this time, I was against the current. Later, I developed a rather narrow identity, also fueled by premature conclusions (which is natural after we read European classics in school). I once encountered the incredibly boring book The Picture of Dorian Gray. Come on, you’re not going to have a teenager analyze it, and I believe that, for most people, we just read what we like, period. But I used to say that I couldn’t understand European literature because I couldn’t imagine what was happening. The opposite happened when I started reading Latin American literature, with which I connect and will continue to connect. However, I must say that lately I’ve become hooked on Hemingway’s short stories.
Anyway, at some point I started to feel comfortable with a language that isn’t my own. Well, that’s that life goes on, and the brain eventually gives up, but in a good way.
At the beginning, when I started my first job outside my country, I felt like the Tower of Babel. I didn’t feel like I understood what was happening, and in the office everyone spoke their own version of English, even me. At first, I understood nothing and couldn’t make myself understood. I thought maybe it was because I was only used to listening to British accents in my English lessons or on BBC radio, until I met my coworker, who was a born Brit. I couldn’t understand a word he said.
I remember he asked for my phone, and I caught maybe 10% of what he was saying: he was organizing a meeting for the weekend, with food and relaxation. But I wasn’t 100% sure, and I felt a little embarrassed to ask him to repeat everything. I think he realized it, and later he texted me to explain what it was about and gave me the address of the party. I was very happy at that gathering.
The first lesson I learned while abroad is that tolerance makes all the difference. I don’t know if everyone noticed, but I arrived quite scared and very shy. Yet I always found that people are interested in your culture and can learn from you and you can learn a lot from them.
Yes, I was in the Tower of Babel, and I still am, but we are ears that listen and voices that want to be heard.
:)