Spanish Tuesdays
Continuing to share what I listened to, watched, read and did in Spanish this month.
Listening
Podcasts
El Mundo al día - a 20-minute daily podcast on varied subjects. This month's included El Mundo reporter's experience travelling through Ukraine; the Depp vs. Heard fiasco trial; Spanish electoral campaigns; enjoying Nadal's victories but dreading his retirement; increasingly high university acceptance rates; former King Juan Carlos I investigations into hunting safaris, embezzlement and corruption; Algeria and Sánchez's betrayal; inflation's effect on travel and tourism; cryptocurrencies - trouble in paradise?; Juanma Moreno and Andalucía; the fall of Mónica Oltra; Conde Fernando Gonzalez de Castejón - anatomy of a murderer; rising fuel costs; tragedy at the Melilla border fence; childhood cancer and its consequences.
Another podcast in Spanish I have recently come across is the brilliant Las Raras which describes itself as a podcast about 'historias de libertad'. These are the episodes I listened to in June:
Con amor desde Caracas (23 September, 2021, 26 mins).
Story of exile from Chile, a family separated, and twenty years of long-distance communication through the medium of cassettes. Proof that 'los afectos trascienden las fronteras'!
La Furia de Alain (30 September, 2021, 27 mins)
Alain Pinzón shares his difficult experience of growing up in Mexico as a gay man and the stigma of contracting AIDS. He relates the abuse and neglect he and too many others suffered and the shame he felt which led to many years of diagnosis denial and refusal to be treated. Only after waking from a 35-day induced coma did he find his voice and decide to dedicate his life to activism and human rights.
La Refugiada (14 October, 2021, 28 mins)
The tragic story of María Teresa from El Salvador, who in 2011, unaware of her pregnancy, suffered a late miscarriage and, upon waking in the hospital, found out she was under arrest for 'killing' her baby. Through her candid interview, she explains the plight and persecution of poor, uneducated women in a sexist, classist country where abortion is against the law. María Teresa was incomprehensibly sentenced to 40 years in prison for her 'crime' and was treated as a 'mata niños' and 'la come niño'. After serving four years, feminist and human rights groups were able to successfully help her appeal against her sentence and she and her first son were granted exile in Sweden. This makes for difficult listening but there is a happy ending.
Song/Artist of the Week
Presuntos Implicados - Mil Mariposas - Although the band formed in the 1980s, I got to know them in the 90s when I lived in Madrid. Soledad Giménez's warm, soft voice and the band's jazzy, chilled sound make for an easy listening experience. Soledad separated acrimoniously from the band after 22 years, which caused much heartbreak, given that her brother was co-member. Listen and watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5YgHjOZ0Zs
Watching
TV
I finished Bienvenidos a Edén/Welcome to Eden. What did I think of it? Bueno... regular. It must have been a popular choice, given that in mid-May the series was no. 2 in the Netflix charts. But it wasn't to everyone's taste. Paul Tassi, senior contributor to Forbes, describes it as 'inescapably... dull' (https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/05/12/netflixs-welcome-to-eden-review-no-dont-bother/). At the time of writing this post a month later, there's no sign of it in the top 10. Not surprisingly, Stranger Things is currently top of the charts!
Reading
Books
For some reason, even though I'm loving La Sombra del Viento, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, this month I've only managed to read a few pages. Qué tristeza! I must prioritise reading next month...
Doing
Working out, language exchange, cualquier cosa...
Exercise
I'm getting back into callisthenics, so have been on the lookout for vids in each language. Some of this month's workouts were:
Jéssica Martín Moreno - Rutina de Calistenia para principiantes sin material
More of an instructional video than a follow-along, but all the basics are here: 3 varieties of flexiones (push-ups): neutras, abiertas and diamante, with or without knees on the ground; plank; plank invertido, with legs still or cycling; tricep dips (is there a Spanish term for dips...?); sentadillas profundas y sentadillas sumo (squats); zancadas (lunges); sentadillas con salto (jumping squats). Jessica gives a summary at the end, which I screenshotted for future reference.
Gym-in - Ejercicios intensos de gluteos 5 minutos
Sets of 40-second exercises: sentadillas (squats) a set each of legs together, hip-distance apart and wide legged (sumo); piernas arriba y abajo (that's the technical term for standing side leg raises ;); sentadilla con salto (jumping squats touching the ground). Go on - activad los gluteos!
Gymvirtual - Rutina Brazos para Hombros, Triceps y Pecho
Great 9-min upper body workout lying on back with weights of your choosing. Added bonus if you keep your abs tight all the way through too.
Gymvirtual - Rutina para tonificar todo el cuerpo y quemar grasa | Total Body 10' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRnxyi7uNB4).
Squats, calf raises, lunges, side to side squats, no less than four variations of plank (static, forearms to hands, legs bent and side plank), push-ups and tricep dips.
Yoga con Marina Buedo – Yoga vinyasa 15 min a cualquier hora (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06-PyZBujM&t=1111s).
A quick vinyasa flow. I like the fact Marina uses the Spanish terms for the poses. The session begins with a few side and forward stretches and then: posición de la mesa, vaca y gato, perro hacia abajo, flexión de cadera, tronco hacia delante, torsión, flexión hacia delante, postura de la pirámide, tronco a medio camino, lagarto, postura de la silla, torsión supina, postura de la mariposa reclinada. Does anyone know how to say the fallen star pose (Patita Tarasana) in Spanish...?
Yoga con Marina Buedo – Yoga para la ESPALDA y CUELLO | Elimina la rigidez de la espalda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ceGLAMwSsg&t=1328s).
As the title suggests, this is a great one if you have a stiff neck and spine from too many hours of sitting. Gentle but effective poses - child's pose, cat/cow, thread the needle, downward dog, pigeon, seated twist, wide legged and seated forward folds, and supine twist.
Yoga con Baruc - Yoga con calma | 30 min
Although a slow, gentle session, it has all the ingredients to open up and make space. And Baruc still manages to insert a sneaky plank in near the end which feels like a long minute!
Speaking Spanish
More weekly Slype calls with my language exchange partner, María. During our conversation, there were a few words that I couldn't quite access from my mind palace...
- to stutter: tartamudear, titubear, balbucear
- recuperative sleep: sueño reparador
- set off a chain reaction: desencadenar
Word of the month
There's lots of vocab to choose from La Sombra del Viento, but this month it has to be:
Repampimflar
No sign of it in my, admittedly old, Oxford dictionary or the RAE online dictionary. But the Free Dictionary had this to say:
Mostrarse por completo indiferente ante una persona o una cosa, e.g. a mí me la repampinflan lo que piensen los demás (https://es.thefreedictionary.com/repampinflar).
And DiccET (https://diccet.com/que-es-diccet/) gives a bit more:
Dar algo absolutamente igual a alguien, e.g. le repampinfla todo.
Es más normal su uso en la construcción repampinflársela algo a alguien: Me la repampinfla que no venga a la fiesta.
Variations and synonyms:
refanfinflar (la más normal), reflanfinflar, refanflinflar, reflanflinfar, reflanfinfar, reflanflinflar, refanflinfar, repampimplar, repamplimpar, repamplimplar, repanfinflar, remanfinflar, fanfinflar, panfinflar, manfinflar, repampimpar, repantinflar, replampimpar.
English: I couldn't/don't give a damn/monkey's/shit/toss... any other suggestions?
Let me know what activities you're doing in Spanish and please share this post with anyone you think would find it of interest. I'm thinking of changing format and medium for these Keepy-uppy posts, so keep an eye out on LinkedIn. Hasta pronto!