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Informative errors July 7, 2016

July 7, 2016

Since I started working seriously on my Spanish, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to native Spanish speakers who are generally fluent in English and the mistakes they still make in English. I figure that those persistent mistakes can probably show me where I’ll be especially prone to mess up in Spanish, and what the correct usage would be. For example, the graduate student/naturalist here frequently says “I don’t have nothing”, etc. because double negatives are perfectly acceptable in Spanish.

Because my Spanish is so rudimentary, I can’t provide a comparable sampling of English-language errors in Spanish. However, last week I did wind up providing an informative cultural error. After some people walked into the dining room 15 minutes late, the other naturalist turned to me and said, “You don’t have provecho in English, do you?” I agreed that we didn’t.

Provecho, which I would translate as bon appetit or “enjoy your meal”, is something that Costa Ricans say to one another, not just at the beginning of a meal together but, as far as I can tell, whenever they see someone eating. What happened was that the latecomers walked in, said provecho, and everyone at our table (except me) said provecho or provecho igual (“enjoy your meal too”). I am also really bad at walking into the dining room and offering a provecho to the room in general.

One thing I haven’t really figured out is at what point social anonymity excuses one from wishing someone provecho. People who have just arrived at the station, don’t know any of us will, and are sitting at another table will still say provecho as they walk by. But I think the small size and isolation of the field station may increase the sociality of visitors. I certainly don’t remember people wishing strangers provecho in the roadside eateries the buses stop at. And the image of a waiter and party walking through a restaurant provecho-ing every table they pass strikes me as rather ridiculous. Also quite annoying to the other patrons.