Spanish lessons through literature/creative writing: "clase n.8"
EL DIARIO DE DIEGO: clase n.8
-¡Che, cabeza de chorlito!- se rio mi amigo Miguel. -Es obvio que los puchos no tienen nada que ver con la desaparición de mi padre. Aunque es verdad que los puchos matan, eso fue su disculpa para salir de casa y nunca más regresar.
Hay que saber, mis amores, que Miguel es mayor que yo. Él ya tiene catorce años, así que es más experimentado que yo. Y ahora, por cierto, me van a preguntar por qué no está en la secundaria, en vez de asistir a las clases conmigo en el cuarto grado de la primaria. Lo que pasó fue que a Miguel les suspendieron miles de asignaturas durante años seguidos y entonces se quedó una y otra vez repitiendo. Bueno, mi mejor amigo es algo burro y estudiar no es lo suyo. Sin embargo, sabe de la vida mucho más que yo. Fue por Miguel que descubrí que mi familia y yo, así como la de mi mejor amigo, vivimos en una favela. Y eso parece ser el percance que tiene algo a que ver con la desaparición del señor Isidro. Sin embargo, mejor que se lo cuente otra vez...
Dictionary and slang:
CABEZA DE CHORLITO: an idiom meaning DUMMY. Commonly, it's an offence, but when used among close friends and relatives and depending on the context, the idea is to be facetious, funny. Miguel is Diego's best friend, so he really only meant to be facetious. CHORLITO is a bird whose head is so small that in Latin America generated such an idiom (you'll see its vector image I chose for the videoslide of the pronunciation).
RIO (the infinitive is REÍR) = LAUGHED (the verb to laugh conjugated in the third singular person, simple past tense). In Spanish it's often used in its reflexive form (SE RIO in this chapter). REÍR is an irregular verb.
DESAPARICIÓN = VANISHING
DISCULPA = EXCUSE
MAYOR: in this context (comparing the age of two or more people), it means ELDER.
EXPERIMENTADO: in this case and context is a noun and not the past participle of the verb EXPERIMENTAR, so it means EXPERIENCED.
SECUNDARIA = HIGH SCHOOL
CLASE/S = LESSON/S
GRADO = GRADE-LEVEL. It's school environment context, so CUARTO GRADO is the FOURTH GRADE in the primary school.
PRIMARIA = PRIMARY SCHOOL
SUSPENDER = TO SUSPEND (school environment context: here verb conjugated in the third plural person, simple past tense SUSPENDIERON), irregular verb.
ASIGNATURA/S = SUBJECT/S
REPETIR = TO REPETE (school environment context): here used the gerund REPITIENDO (this is an irregular verb too).
BURRO = DONKEY, but in this case not the animal, but the slang to describe a failing lazy student.
LO SUYO is an idiom composed of the neutral article LO plus the possessive pronoun SUYO (referred to the third singular person), meaning IT'S PART OF HIS/HER CHARACTER, ATTITUDE OR PERSONALITY. In the case of Miguel, in the negative form, little Diego is telling that to study is not part of the attitude and personality of his best friend.
VIDA = LIFE
FAVELA = FAVELA, SHANTYTOWN, GHETTO, SLUM
PERCANCE = MISHAP, MISFORTUNE
Here the video-slide with the pronunciation:
I registered the pronunciation and I added an image for the video-slide from Pixabay, among those can be freely used. You find it here:
https://pixabay.com/es/vectors/p%C3%A1jaro-alas-chorlito-plumas-46531/
Video-slide prepared with the free tools Slideshow Creator and ClipChamp default for Windows11.
Did you read the lesson and watched the video-slide? Very well, let's go now to see the English translation🤗:
DIEGO'S DIARY (=EL DIARIO DE DIEGO): lesson n.8
-Hey, dummy!- laughed my best friend Miguel. -It's obvious that cigarettes have nothing to do with my father's disappearance. It's true that cigarettes kill, but that was an excuse to leave home and never come back.
You have to know, my dear friends, that Miguel is older than I. He's already fourteen, so he's more experienced than me. And now, by the way, you are going to ask me why he is not in High School, instead of attending classes with me in the fourth grade of primary school. What happened was that Miguel failed thousands of subjects along the years in a row and so he kept repeating over and over again. Well, my best friend is a bit of a donkey and studying is not his thing. However, he knows a lot more about life than I do. It was because of Miguel that I discovered that my family and I, as well as my best friend's family, live in a favela. And that seems to be the mishap that has something to do with Mr. Isidro's disappearance. However, I'd better tell you about it again...
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