or Mi nombre es John
I really like Amy, our instructor for the non-credit Conversational Spanish class at Motlow. Last night, as we were doing an exercise in which we had paired off and were asking each other questions, she said that when introducing ourselves in Spanish, we should still use our normal English names.
This makes perfect sense, and yet we’ve all either had, or seen parodies of, the over-enthusiastic foreign language teacher who has all the Johns in class call themselves Juan, all of the Peters call themselves Pedro, and so on.
Amy pointed out, correctly, that your name does not change based on geography. If you travel to Mexico and have to fill out a form, you do not write “Juan” if “John” is what appears on your passport, your credit card and your airline ticket. Your name is your name, and does not change just because you travel somewhere where a different language is spoken.
Yes, it’s a fun bit of trivia to know the Spanish-language equivalent of your given name, but it has no practical value. In this context, given our limited time in class and the volume of what we’re trying to take in, it would just be a distraction from the words that do need to be translated.
.
Add New Comment
Viewing 4 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks
(Trackback URL)
March 29, 2007 at 1:15 pm
[...] What is the Spanish-equivalent of your name? Spread It Around: These icons link to social bookmarking sites ...