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¿Como se dice “moose’’?
When Maria’s language consisted of “leche,’’ “tete’’ and “mas’’ I started using picture books to teach her words like “mejilla,’’ “burbuja’’ and “granja’’ — words beyond the everyday. It mattered not if the book was in Spanish or English because I am bold enough to translate on my own.
And then, suddenly, it got complicated. It was “moose’’ that threw me. She pointed to a moose and I had absolutely no idea. Moose? Why would I have ever used the word moose in Spanish? Puerco, guineo, cucaracha, si. But moose? No.
Faster than one can say “no se,” I hauled to the used bookstore to purchase a better Spanish/English dictionary. Moose = Alce, which I can never remember. But, the dictionary now sits on the bookshelf in her room, not far from my reach. We use it a lot because, unfortunately, telling her that everything I don’t know how to translate is a bicho just wouldn’t work in the long run.
There’s always “cosita.”
When my friends Alejandra and Hernan from Chile were in graduate school in Texas, they put their little girl in pre-school, where she learned English. At my house one day, Javiera was climbing on the sofa. Alejandra told Javiera to take her shoes off the sofa. Javiera looked at her mother with disdain and said, “These are not shoes; they are sandals. This is not a sofa; it is a couch.”