I’m trying to start blogging again. I used to blog all the time. Before blogging, I used to write a lot on my electric Royal typewriter. I keep getting the urge to write, but then I keep deferring it. I posted this picture of me from 1982 to inspire me to write like I used to. Let’s see if it works.
I’m back! At least, I think I am. Or, rather, I want to be. I have such a guilty conscience since I stopped writing blog posts. I could list hundreds of excuses for not writing, such as too busy, not enough time, I teach too many classes, I correct too many compositions and/or homework, etc, but I won’t list any!
I really have missed writing this blog, so now that the semester is almost over, I’m beginning to think about writing again.
Rompiendo Malo. Lost in translation. If translation is the correct word to use when describing what the writers for the hit show Breaking Bad do when they write dialogue in Spanish. Perhaps, whoever wrote the Spanish dialogue in Breaking Bad only studied Spanish in high school, or even the minimum required college Spanish.
Breaking Bad has a lot of characters speaking Spanish, but as a Spanish instructor, I couldn’t help but analyze their use of Spanish. When Skylar of Walter White speak in Spanish poorly, it’s understandable because they’re not native Spanish speakers. However, how can you live in the state of New Mexico with so many Spanish speakers and not know at least a little Spanish?
In general, the script writer literally translated English dialogue into Spanish and did so very poorly. In one meeting with members of the Mexican cartel, Gustavo Fring tells his guests to take a seat by saying in Spanish, “Tomen un asiento.” That is a literal translation of, “Take a seat.” If you offer someone a seat in Spanish, you should say, “Siéntense.” This bad translation is unacceptable because the character of Gustavo Fring is from Chile, so he is a native Spanish speaker. However, the actor Giancarlo Esposito, however, does not speak Spanish and his pronunciation in Spanish is lacking. It is even more noticeable because of his otherwise good acting. Esposito needed to rehearse his lines in Spanish a little more.
In another scene, Tío Héctor says to Gustavo and Max while at a meeting with Don Eladio, “Quédete.” This is poor grammar, and no native Spanish speaker would ever say this. “Quede” is a formal command, but the actor Mark Margolis uses the familiar reflexive pronoun “te” instead of the required formal pronoun “se.” He could have used either a formal or familiar command, but Spanish does not allow for a little of both. He needed to say, “Quédese” or “Quédate”, but never “Quédete”.
However, not all the Spanish spoken in Breaking Bad is terrible. When the actors who are native Spanish speakers speak Spanish, they speak much better Spanish. They read the script and said, “Wait. No one would ever say this in Spanish!” because they then say their lines in a more natural Spanish and not a literal translation into English where one word after the other is translated into English. I could tell by the subtitles in English when Spanish is spoken. In other scenes not with native Spanish speakers, the Spanish words follow the same order as the words in the English subtitle.
When Jesse Pinkman is at his new girlfriend Andrea’s house, her mother immediately disapproves of Andrea’s choice of a new boyfriend. The mother immediately begins speaking in Spanish, good Spanish, what she thinks of her daughter and Pinkman, none of it particularly good. Interestingly enough, there are no English subtitles for this dialogue. My theory is that there was no dialogue written for this scene and the actress Virginia Montero merely ad libbed her dialogue in a Spanish language that was very natural to her. I could picture my mother or grandmother speaking like this. Of course, no one from the show was able to translate this into English subtitles.
What does “Breaking Bad” mean? Well, one meaning of “breaking” is changing directions, such as breaking to the right or to the left. Or one can be breaking good or breaking bad, separating from path to another. In this show, everyone is breaking bad. Everyone was good at the start, but then they started breaking bad, especially Walter White.
For the title of this post, I merely literally translated Breaking Bad into Rompiendo Malo. Breaking = Rompiendo and Bad = Malo. I looked up “breaking” and “bad” on wordreference.com and I found “rompiendo” and “malo” for the translations. However, Rompiendo Malo doesn’t mean anything in Spanish. I must admit that this is a very poor way to translate one language into another, but I feel that the writers of Breaking Bad did this for many of the speeches in Spanish.
I suppose I wouldn’t have noticed the Spanish dialogue if I wasn’t a Spanish instructor. But I am and I did. I’m breaking good.
I count miles, not calories. I’m into running, not dieting. Many people are obsessed by the number of calories they eat when they should be exercising more. Now I’m not one to preach about the benefits of any form of exercise, but people always seem to know the exact number of calories I’m about to consume when I raise a soft drink to my mouth or get ready to order junk food.
Lately, people have been asking me how I lost so much weight. I dropped about thirty pounds and went from a 36-inch waist to a 32-inch waist. They’re disappointed when I tell them that I run about nine miles every day. They either don’t have time to run, or they have a back injury or bad knees that prevent them from running. I don’t have time to run, either, but I make time to run because I enjoy physical exercise and time for ruminating about my daily activities. I work out some of my daily problems and plan my day while running. When I don’t run, I feel as if I’m missing out on something vital. Yes, eat, breathe, sleep, run. They’re all very important. And just as important: reading, writing, running.
And in order to keep running, I eat fruits and vegetables every day. Every morning, I eat a banana, an apple, and an orange. I also enjoy eating a granola bar and a yogurt in the morning. I’m not happy unless I eat three pieces of fruit every day. I also eat peanuts and/or pistachios every day. I love eating peanuts and pistachios! I used to work in a peanut butter factory, and I could eat all the peanuts and/or peanut butter I wanted. And I enjoy drinking orange juice, the pulpy kind. I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan, but I like going without meat on some days. I once tried being a vegetarian, but I only lasted about a month before I began craving meat, any kind of meat. I guess deep down inside, I’m a carnivore!
My daily goals are to run as much as possible each day, or at least walk a mile or two, and eat some healthy food before I eat all the other junk food and sweets that I crave and can’t seem to live without. Overall, I feel good, but people I shocked that I run so much and by some of the things I eat. Well, I’m not here to please others. I want to enjoy my life. I can only please others or please myself. I choose me!
Blogging is my way of getting my say in a world that doesn’t seem to listen to me. Since I was little, I’ve always had a difficult time to get people to listen to me. Perhaps, I was never assertive enough. I know I was always shy and I was so very self-conscious of my English–and Spanish when I was in México. So, when I spoke, and very softly, no one ever noticed or people would speak right over me. I became accustomed to not participating in conversations, but I did become a very good listener.
I started blogging because I enjoy writing, whether or not anyone actually reads what I write. The writing is the most important part for me. Occasionally, people have told me that they had read my blog and I was pleasantly surprised to hear this. However, not many people have read my blog the entire time it’s been in existence.
I can write about whatever I want. And even change topics in the middle of a post. I’ve been blogging for about nine years now, including a few lapses in posting. I believe that writing a blog is very therapeutic because it allows me to vent and jump from topic to topic according to what I’m feeling. Some blog posts were easier to write than others, but once I start a post, I finish it. Amazingly, the shorter posts take longer to write; the long posts just flow out all by themselves.
Today, this post is dragging along. It must be the weather. Cloudy and rainy with the temperature in the forties. I’m hoping the rain will stop and the temperature rises a little so I can run in shorts and a t-shirt. But I will run today. In fact, I’m going out the door now.
Chicago USA 