arandano…sudando…valladolid

mango martinis

arandano…sudando…valladolid

arandano…sudando…valladolid

arandano…sudando…valladolid

translation:
cranberry…sweating…a city in the southeastern part of the Yucatán..!! What the what.!?!

I know, you are all thinking I have completely gone off the deep end. It’s possibly true. But that mantra above helped me remember where to stress the syllable (‘si-lə-bəl) rather than the syllable (si-‘lə-bəl) of those three very difficult (for me) to pronounce words. Well, of course, there was also lavanderia or laundromat.! I was always saying lavanderia with the stress on la. When the stress should have been on the der part.!

at La Sur

Luckily for me, putting the stress on the wrong syllable usually didn’t get me into too much trouble.! I don’t believe by changing the stress I incorrectly spouted obscene words.!! I’m sure I would remember that 🙂 jajaja.. But I did get corrected. A lot. No really, I mean a lot. And it didn’t help when I would study Spanish rules in my spare time (http://spanish.about.com) and it would tell me that “If a word without an accent mark ends in a vowel, n or s, the stress is on the penultimate (next to last) syllable.”

Who has time to remember that little tidbit in real life.!! When I’m talking to the grocer or the maintenance guy.! Um excuse me for a second while I reference my Spanish language rules.!! aargghhh.!! I finally realized the only way to get better was to practice. With everybody. Even when I annoyed them and they wanted me to go back to English.! jajaja…

at La Azotea

The above mantra happened one night during a concierge dine around in Playa del Carmen. I was with my fellow co-workers and we were going from restaurant to restaurant sampling the local food and drink.! Everyone was having a fantastic time. At some point in the evening, probably after too many beverages, one of my co-workers and good friends, K., came up with the following mantra to help me remember where the stresses were for each word.! We said it all night. And laughed all night. I’ve included photos from that evening’s festivities.!

You might wonder why these particular words were so important to me. Well arandano or cranberry is necessary to mix with vodka 🙂 As for sudando or sweating, I mean really. I was living close to the equator – it was pretty frickin’ hot.! And Valladolid is a city in the southeastern part of the Yucatán that I always wanted to visit. But never got around to seeing while I lived in Mexico.

at Clandestino

Yesterday, I saw on facebook that my friend K., of above mantra fame, had gone to Valladolid with her boyfriend. She had posted beautiful pictures of her trip.! So I commented on her photo collage with the above mantra. She replied back “Jaja Rose…I do remember our spanish lessons..send you hugs.” Ahhh memories 🙂