The Street is the Place to Learn Spanish (Part II)

Read the Graffiti

I have seen some brilliant graffiti here, which is something I never thought I would ever be able to say. Generally speaking I hate graffiti but in South America there is a lot of religious and political stuff which really gets me interested and lets me learn Spanish phrases I wouldn’t otherwise see. The first piece of graffiti I read here was when I was on the bus in Ecuador. The person writing it probably won’t mind me repeating it here. It was “Jesús es verbo no sustantivo”. It took me just a few minutes to work out what it meant and I later discovered that there is also a song of the same name.

Look in the Rubbish

I don’t want to come across like a weirdo here but I am fascinated by pieces of litter I see on the ground. Sometimes I will see an ice cream wrapper with words like “Canela” or “Sabroso” on it and I can therefore expand my vocabulary a little bit more. The problem with learning Spanish from the rubbish is that it is easy to make a mistake. If the wrapper is dirty or scrunched up you can easily get a letter wrong and completely misunderstand it. Actually, when I think about it the simplest and cleanest solution is to go to the supermarket and read the product labels there. The people will probably still think that I am a nutter as I scan the bags of rice for exciting verbs but at least I won’t be at risk of standing on dog poo if I get really distracted.