For those of you who are new to this, I will be the first to tell you that we are not from Spain. This doesn’t mean we don’t speak Spanish. We do, but we speak it in a very different way. To our Spanish speaking friends, we are very fluent, but we do speak in a different way. We speak in a very colloquial, conversational way.
The game is about to be released in the U.S. on the Nintendo Switch in the fall, but our new trailer promises to be different. It shows us a huge new generation of players have started to speak Spanish as well, and we will be able to explain how to make the game work. We don’t want this anymore, but we need to be able to make it more comfortable for our English speaking Spanish friends.
We like to say, “when you speak in a colloquial way, you are speaking in a very specific way. There is a lot of slang and jargon attached to the word ‘colloquial.’ When you speak in this way, you are not saying what you mean. It is much more intimate than that. In Spanish, it is much easier to make a game work for your friends. You just have to know how to express yourself and not be so vague.
If you don’t know how to say it, then you can’t say it. And when you can’t make a game work with your friends, you aren’t going to help them. And when they aren’t helping you and you are feeling like you’re having a hard time, you’re going to feel like you are being ignored.
I understand why this is a contentious issue. I’m always frustrated when I watch my friend play games of DOTA, because I know there are a million ways to be annoying, and many of them involve the fact that the players are getting annoyed. And I know that there is more than one way to say “dude” and it’s not always the same. But I also know that most people would be better off if we had better ways to communicate.
I know I’ve been writing a lot about communication lately, but I wanted to give you a quick reminder. This is not a one-way communication. We all have a lot of free time on our hands and need to be able to write and express ideas, so please stop being so shy about it. And if you’re not sure what I mean, check out my other blog posts about communication.
In this case, we are talking about talking about Spanish. When I was growing up I used to spend my days at a bilingual school. I learned two languages, one of which was Spanish. I still know the other, but I now know how much it sucks to speak in spanish. So when I write in Spanish, I use the same words, but I use the same grammar, vocabulary, and intonation in my writing in both languages.
I learned I have to stop and think because I can’t use a Spanish sentence. I’ve learned the grammar of all English languages. I also learn Spanish well enough to use the Spanish word “p” in the sentence. I learned Latin right before I started to learn Spanish, when I was 14. To me, Spanish is the first word I ever learned.
So when I write in Spanish, I try to be more careful not to sound too spanish while doing it. Because when I write in Spanish, I cant hear the words I say. I have to think of what to say so I don’t sound too spanish. I have to think of which words I mean, and then I have to figure out how to say them. I also have to learn how to use the different tenses.
One of the many things I love about Spanish is the ability to use the indefinite article in English. This is why I like to use the word “the” to refer to things that are only for some time, like for example, “the rain is going to be too cold for me tonight.” “the rain” is the indefinite article.
