Spanish snobbery

We all have preferences.  I prefer a little heat in food and my husband prefers quite a bit more.  With Spanish, I prefer the way I heard it while I was in grad school.

In grad school I lived in Madrid, Spain with a family who was very proud of their Galician roots.  Their accent was different than those who were Madrileños.  

If you're unfamiliar, Galicia is a region of Spain that is proud of its own unique cultural heritage that is different than that of Madrid.  In Madrid, many people pronounce the /s/ with a /th/ sound.  A good number of my professors were Madrileños and their accent never sounded quite right to me because it wasn't what I was used to.  The speech therapist in me (that's what I studied for my undergrad) wanted to "fix" Madrileños by teaching them how to pronounce the /s/ sound.  No, I never did that but I sure wanted to.  

I found a Spanish show on Netflix called El Barco.  It was made in Spain in 2013.  The story line was crazy--a boat of 40 people that was afloat when the world was destroyed.  It was a sci-fi/romance/comedy and thoroughly entertaining.  Our internet would lag quite a bit so I had a difficult time watching it.  This was probably just as well because there was an enormous amount of profanity that my boys could read on the subtitles.  That was personally irritating because 1-I don't like profanity and find it offensive and 2-were I to translate the dialogue I wouldn't have used such gratuitous profanity.  Oh well.

What I did like was the way the actors spoke the language I love.  Spanish is a beautiful language with a lyrical and poetic quality that tickles my ears.  Teaching beginning Spanish classes has its joys, but listening to students learn to pronounce Spanish isn't always delightful.  Instead of tickling my ear, my ear sometimes feels like someone is smashing it with a hammer.

Yes, I'm a Spanish snob.  I'll own it.  I have the good sense to keep it to myself but El Barco gave my ears a much-needed vacation.  Netflix removed it from the site this morning which is probably for the best because it was an enormous time waste for me and the ridiculous plot line was what the kids would call "cringey".  (Is that really a word?  If so it describes many of the plot twists).  The show was like Lost meets Gilligan's Island with Friends somehow mixed in.  Oh well.  It was fun while it lasted.

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