Extrangés al Matarraña
No me referixco als de La Portellada, sino als habitans de uns atres paísos.
Conec mols rumanos que han adeprés lo chapurriau y lo parlen com consevol de natros. Fa añs vach aná a Queretes al bar de la carretera y ñabíe un rumano, no u sabía, que parlae igual que consevol de Queretes, y vach creure que ere de allí. Es un idioma mol més paregut al nostre del que mos pareix, pero com natros no nessesitem adependre rumano pos no mon acatem. Llengues romances.
Los fills de extrangés que naixen o creixen al Matarraña solen adependre lo chapurriau, encara que no tots lo parlen. Lo castellá es lo idioma més utilisat.
La meua parella, Violeta, es de Bulgaria. Va está a Valderrobres uns 15 añs. Estem a Alemania, parlem castellá entre natres.
Entén chapurriau, y diu alguna expresió com “ojo lo cap“, “ojol cap“, cuan obri un armari de la cuina y estem los dos.
Entén chapurriau, y diu alguna expresió com “ojo lo cap“, “ojol cap“, cuan obri un armari de la cuina y estem los dos.
Los tres fills (de ella) parlen castellá a escola y en amics. A casa fan aná búlgaro y castellá casi per igual.
En sa tía, búlgara, parlen búlgaro més sobín,
en sons cusins, criats a Valderrobres, parlen més castellá que búlgaro.
Podríen parlá chapurriau sense problemes, pero han triat lo castellá.
Blogs que parlen del Matarraña, llengua, chapurriau
Of course, all of this only works if you learn Spanish. We took classes before we came here, so we could at least go to the shop or order food at the restaurants; coming here, we took a dictionary everywhere we went (especially convenient at said restaurants). Around here, everybody speaks Spanish (Castellano) and Chapuriau (a dialect of Catalan). Very few people speak English or French; they are incredibly nice though – they help us with grammar and we still learn new words every single day. Inma, the butcher in Cretas, would share recipes for the meat I’d buy there; our neighbour Enrique shows us how he tends his garden and his fruit trees whenever we have questions; I learned all about body parts in Spanish doing yoga at Kurkum Farm. It would have been much easier to try and speak English and use body language to get around in the area – but we wouldn’t have learned as much, and not made the same connections.
This also applies when sending out e-mails; people will often send e-mails to Spanish people in English. Imagine a Brazilian person coming to your country of origin and sending you an e-mail in Portuguese… would you really do the effort to translate it, or would you just assume it was spam? Right. If you really have no clue, you can use a translator. I use Google Translate. I still do, when I have to send out a longer e-mail; I will translate it online, then type it out using words I understand. This also helps me improve my Spanish.
If you’re not ready to learn Spanish (or you’re just having a hard time), make sure you have a person by your side who’s really on your side when doing important things. For instance, when I broke my knee in my second week here, I could have used somebody to translate my pain during my first few doctor’s visits; it could have saved me the 3 months of “rest” I shouldn’t have taken with this kind of injury, and the months of revalidation that followed. We could also have brought in a native speaker on our side to point out ambiguities when signing contracts; we might not have changed anything about them, but at least we’d have realised back then that everything could be interpreted a different way.