My prof told us the way to really get our señoras to stop giving us food. She said to say "no quiero más, de verdad" which means, I don't want more, it's true. HA
She also said that basically the spanish life is like theater. If someone asks you if you want to do something, they really don't want to do it unless they say it AT LEAST three times AND say "de verdad"
So if a group of friends are walking home and someone says, do you guys want to come hang out? the polite thing to say is no...maybe some other time, and if thats the end of the conversation, leave it at that, but if they say, yea come hang out de verdad come hang out, lets hang out, then it's okay to say alright let's hang out.

When asking for something, it's rude not to explain why. So if I say, do you mind if i open the window? it's "maleducado" or rude, to not say, it's because i'm hot. And the response i'll get is, "si abrela, abrela, abrela"....or yea, open it (3 times) ha.

If you go out to eat with someone, when it comes to paying the bill, if one person offers to pay, it is maleducado to not say no i'll pay it..which I think is sort of similar to the US. BUT what happens here is that the two people go back and forth until the waiter comes over, then at that point the person who offered first, must pay the bill.
(so why go through the whole motion every time...??)

If you're out with a big group of people, when it comes to paying the bill, it is usually split. This is where I would be missin out! So weather you drank water and owe nothing, or drank ten beers, you split the bill between however many people are at the table, end of story.

If someone says oh i have a headache, you are supposed to say something worse...oh i broke my toe three years ago...and this will go back and forth. I said..it's not a competition when it comes to pain, and she said, oh yea, in España it is.

que diferente...

written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 17, 2009 from Granada, Spain
from the travel blog: Granada
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This is very interesting. I love hearing about culture differences like this. It reminds me of when I was taking my American Sign Language classes. My Deaf instructor was saying that "hearing" people don't say what they mean and it is frustrating. She was talking about the "nice" stuff we do like offer to pay something, etc. and not really mean it or how we are polite to say they look nice when they don't. She said Deaf people are very blunt, but it is not to be rude, they just need to be concise with their communication. Sometimes when "hearing" people do not say what they mean, Deaf people construe that as being dishonest.

I think all of that not saying what you mean in Spain would be really hard for me to get used to. I think it would be frustrating.

Thanks for this interesting blog post. ily

written by  Teresa Haselmann on September 18, 2009

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that is really interesting. it sounds very similar to how i'm feeling...ha kinda of like a deaf person in a hearing people country...kind of.
it is really frustrating, i kept asking my professor WHY is this, i do not understand why they do this, the answer that it's just the culture doesn't satisfy me yet. i don't understand it, but now that you say that, i guess we do the same thing, just a little differently. it's weird hearing that everyone knows that nobody means what they are saying...so why not just say what you mean? interesting.
these are my favorite kinds of classes. i don't like being lectured on different rules on structures of sentences, i learn better when having a discussion, and it's a win/win. i learn about the culture, and sentence structure...

written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 18, 2009

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P.S. Your grandma was very, very happy you called her on her birthday. You're such a good girl. :)

written by  Uncle Danny on September 21, 2009

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