Catemaco dictionary

There is no book version of a dictionary of Mexican Spanish available that I know of.

Spanish dictionaries are virtually useless to understand the vibrant nuances of the Mexican version of Spanish.

Here is a website that is a fabulous compendium of words as used in Mexico, not in Spain.
Unfortunately it is useful only to Spanish readers.
http://www.academia.org.mx/dicmex.php

While on the subject of words. Catemaco has possibly the largest English library on the Gulf coast north of Merida and south of the border.

The Tepetapan RV park in Catemaco, Veracruz has a book exchange program and has accumulated perhaps 1000 English titles, mostly composed of what road warriors and other casual readers like to snack on.
Some of the same titles are available at most Sanborns, costing above 120 pesos each.
This library alone makes Catemaco a MUST stop for anyone traveling along the Gulf.



The Tepetapan website http://www.gaudis.com/ is unfortunately not viewable in Mexico. So here is a photo for you to grab a book and sit in the wading pool while reading it.

Catemaco translations

The latest local chief of tourism has promised to provide English lessons to the tourism providers in Catemaco.

So, presumably in the future, instead of "Lancha, Lancha", you will be hearing "Boat, Boat" while being accosted by hundreds of vagrants along the Laguna Catemaco shore.

Meanwhile GOOGLE has apparently stepped up to the challenge to provide functional Spanish to English translations, by opening a possibility to correct the GOOGLE translation via a button available on the right of the GOOGLE screen saying "Suggest a better translation".

The message appears after having made a translation on the far bottom right of the screen.

This is a wonderful step in the right direction of improving the current atrocious Spanish to English and viceversa translations.

Blogs in Mexico

A while ago, in one of my manic episodes, I paid attention to English blogs in Mexico and constructed a list of more or less any blog available in Mexico.

After reading most of them for a while, I became dead bored with the frequent "Hail Mexico" scenarios, and I plopped my favorite blogs onto a feed reader so I could skim the cream of my preferred crop.

Over the last few months my feed reader has almost become a wasteland. My favorite bloggers seem to have vanished. Blogs like MarkinMexico, the Mexfile, etc, just can´t get it up any more. So I ran a quick survey, and found a dozen new "Hail Mexico" types. Yuck.

A mad housewife or twisted transsexual, I can´t tell which, is the only new blog I found worth plugging onto my reader, http://www.vidalago.com/wordpress/.

Meanwhile here is the old list, which should keep a newbie happy for a while. http://www.tuxtlas.com/news/blogs.html

Mexico Shut Up

The only English News source in Mexico is discontinued.
Who needs multiculturalism anyway?

Gringospeak

Ana Maria Salazar host an English radio show in Mexico City and occasionally goes off the deep end. This is cribbed from her latest blog.

SPANISH FOR GRINGOS (Para que los Gringos aprendan castellano)…There's always something to learn or to try, many times you need to say some phrase in Spanish, but you don't know how to say it, don't worry, your problems have finished, if your are a gringo and you don't know speak

We took from it some common phrases, just try and you're gonna see the difference and how easy is to speak Spanish.(Léanlo en voz alta en inglés, está genial!)

1.Boy as n r = Voy a cenar = I'm gonna have a dinner
2.N L C John = en el sillón = on the armchair
3.Be a hope and son = Viejo panzón = fat old man
4.Who and see to seek ago = Juancito se cagó = Little John is a chickenshit.
5.S toy tree stone = estoy tristón = I'm kind a sad.
6.Lost trap eat toss = los trapitos = the little rag.
7. Desk can saw = descanso = (you) rest.8. As say toon as = aceitunas = olives.
9. The head the star mall less stan dough = deje de estar molestando = stop bugging me.
10.See eye = si hay = yes we have
11. T n s free o ? = tienes frío = are you cold?
12. T N S L P P B N T S O = Tienes el pipi bien tieso = you have an erection.
13. Tell o boy ah in cruise tar = Te lo voy a incrustar = I'm going to insert it in you

Ask a Mexican

Sitting here in beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz, trying to warm my bones after temperatures fell into the low 60s (15c., once you live here, it’s like an ice age), I reviewed my list of Mexican blogs, and after the fawning of most Mexicophiles on that list, I needed to refresh myself with Gustavo Arellano’s “Ask a Mexican” column in the Orange County Weekly (Southern California).

Here is a dude who unlike his southern counterparts speaks his loving Mexican mind and provides more insights into Mexico than most anything you can read from either natives or “gapachos” resident in Mexico.

Reference: OC Weekly index of Arellano stories.

Mexico Blogs

While most of the world began blogging, Mexico slept.

Blogging in Mexico did not substantially increase until the 2006 Mexican elections. Apparently that event excited the literate cockroaches of Mexico, and now there are hundreds of blogs attempting to vindicate a defeated candidate, or enthrall readers with revolutionary doings.


English and other non-Spanish blogs have also sprouted, and several happily circumvent article 33 of the Mexican constitution desgned to turn foreigners into deaf mutes.

Blogsmexico.com lists most of the Mexican blogs, currently almost 5,000.

Aside from blogs, there are thousands of political columnists in Mexico, usually supported by a physical newspaper or internet news rag. Most Mexican columnists have not discovered the benefit of independent logs because they depend on their patronizing news sources.

Beautiful downtown Catemaco is at present saddled with only one blog. And that blog is in English for shame!

That may be related to the local Mexican monopoly of TELMEX, the local phone line operator, who can take up to 2 years to install a telephone/internet connection next to a house that already has an existing phone line.

Popoluca Speaker

George M Foster recently died at age 92. He spent many of his younger years in the Sierra Santa Marta just south of beautiful downtown Catemaco. The noted anthropologist was one of the first to study Popoluca and Nahuatl dialects unique to Los Tuxtlas, and among his hundreds of books, dissertations and monographs, he was one of the first to focus international attention on those Tuxtlas languages in 1951.

55 years later there are now a rash of concerns over the disappearance of these dialects.

Dozens of species have already disppeared from Los Tuxtlas. Maybe an international designation of the Popolucas as an endangered species might help these totally impoverished and ignored survivors since possibly the Olmec days, attain creditable economic survival status.

Foster Obituary:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/05/26_foster.shtml

Photo: George Foster (G. Paul Bishop photo) University of Berkeley article

Are Mexicans backward?

Over the last few years I have accumulated a plethora a Spanish reading material, mostly about Los Tuxtlas and beautiful downtown Catemaco.

So recently I had to clean up my library shelves and I noticed most Spanish titles were upside down. The book or magazine spines are designed to be read upside down with the item lying flat and its title page facing up. Spines of English books are readable when lying down.

So, since I´m a neatfreak, I turned them all upside down to match my mostly English reading material, whose titles I can now happily read while scanning to the right.

Arabs and Chinese scan to the left.

Why do Mexicans? Very curious!