460-469: Spanish. Dios habla hoy.

You guys! Inspired by Juhmpa Lahiri's example, I said I would translate Bible passages from the Spanish, and I'm doing it! I also checked out a SAT-II Spanish prep book, just as an example of my other thrilling options, but I just tested out of it here, so I am excused from wading through that.

I am using Dios habla hoy instead of the classic Reina Valera. I already owned an RV, but I got tired of fighting with the antiquated language. Since my goal is to improve my conversational Spanish (without having to actually take the risk of actually conversing-- yet), I didn't want to end up walking around sounding like the Spanish equivalent of a King James Bible.

I translate about a paragraph a day, more or less. I do it in writing, which forces me to be honest about the words I don't know. Sometimes I just reread what I have already done and see how many of the new words I still remember. Sometimes, when a passage is very familiar, I just translate as I read.

I find the vocabulary of the Epistles is pretty manageable, since any unusual, theological words are probably cognates of English. The Psalms, though, are really teaching me a lot of great vocabulary for weather phenomena, weaponry, and emotions. I'm also getting some practice recognizing idioms: "tener presente" (to keep in mind), "hacer pedazos" (to tear into pieces),  "tocar en suerte" (a transitive for "to luck into").

I kind of love this one: instead of saying "I lucked into a beautiful home," in Spanish one says "A beautiful home touched me in luck." The Spanish language is very good at removing human agency from events: it's not "I forgot my homework" but "Se me olvido la tarea" (The homework forgot itself to me). I was just standing there, and that darn homework went and forgot itself! What could I do? There I was, and a beautiful house reached out with a lucky touch!

Before I can learn what the idioms mean, though, I have to realize that's what they are, that is, that even though I know the individual words, I can't translate word for word, but that the combination means something else. I've watched English language learners struggle with this phenomenon, so it's good for me to have the same experience.