Look and Listen English Lessons | English conversation practice Podcast with Sharon Faye
Step into the World of Words Celebrating Language Through Dance
Jan 28, 2024
SHARON FAYE
Ever wondered if the rhythmic pulse of language could actually bridge cultural divides? Grab your headphones and prepare for an auditory journey as we're joined by Walter, the Argentinian dynamo from the Mayumana dance music company, who will spin the tale of how drum beats and dance moves shape the art of communication and team spirit. Our conversation pirouettes around the intricacies of meshing performance arts - think drumming meets dancing meets acting - and how this fusion crafts potent workshops that amplify teamwork and dialogue. Plus, Walter sheds light on the stumbles and triumphs Spanish speakers face while tangoing with the English language, from perplexing phonetics to labyrinthine sentence structures.
Cue the laughter as we take a detour down memory lane with the slapstick shenanigans of 'Fawlty Towers' and the lovable Manuel - a springboard into the whimsies of language and slang. It's a hilarious linguistic swap meet where Walter and I exchange colourful Argentinian and British idioms, proving that words are not just a means of communication but a celebration of our diverse cultures. You'll emerge with an appreciation for the charmingly peculiar phrases that make each language unique, and how humour can be a universal translator, connecting us across different continents and experiences. Tune in for an episode that dances to the beat of language, where every word is a step in the dance of understanding.
Ever wondered if the rhythmic pulse of language could actually bridge cultural divides? Grab your headphones and prepare for an auditory journey as we're joined by Walter, the Argentinian dynamo from the Mayumana dance music company, who will spin the tale of how drum beats and dance moves shape the art of communication and team spirit. Our conversation pirouettes around the intricacies of meshing performance arts - think drumming meets dancing meets acting - and how this fusion crafts potent workshops that amplify teamwork and dialogue. Plus, Walter sheds light on the stumbles and triumphs Spanish speakers face while tangoing with the English language, from perplexing phonetics to labyrinthine sentence structures.
Cue the laughter as we take a detour down memory lane with the slapstick shenanigans of 'Fawlty Towers' and the lovable Manuel - a springboard into the whimsies of language and slang. It's a hilarious linguistic swap meet where Walter and I exchange colourful Argentinian and British idioms, proving that words are not just a means of communication but a celebration of our diverse cultures. You'll emerge with an appreciation for the charmingly peculiar phrases that make each language unique, and how humour can be a universal translator, connecting us across different continents and experiences. Tune in for an episode that dances to the beat of language, where every word is a step in the dance of understanding.
If you're a Spanish speaker struggling with English, you came to the right place. Hi everyone, and welcome back to my channel. Today I have a special guest, my friend Walter, who's a dancer and a drummer and a member of a famous dance music company named Humana. And guess what? He's from Argentina. Hey Walter, hey mate, hi Sharon, hey, how's it going?
Walter Zaga:
Everything cool. How are you?
Sharon Faye:
I'm fine, so great to have you here with me. So thank you for joining us, walter. We thought, when we met a week ago, to talk about the challenge of Spanish speakers with English, the struggles they have with English speaking, and also we said that we're going to discuss the clash of British slang and Argentinian slang. Right, so we're going to get to it later. But first, because of who you are and because I adore my Humana I'm your fan, your biggest fan I want you to tell us a little bit about this company, dance company.
Walter Zaga:
Okay, my Humana is in a theater company. My Humana the name is coming from my Humanut, nisra and Ibru war. That means abilities and for a big part of the company you need to have a lot of abilities, like drumming, dancing, acting, acrobat a lot of things together. This is the magic of my Humana that you can do everything together and with a lot of energy and coordinate.
Sharon Faye:
Exactly so. You're using all kinds of stuff and you do those percussions right and using all kinds of things. What kinds of things are you actually using?
Walter Zaga:
We use buckets, burials, flippers, tubes, and the body is the first instrument that we have in the I can't hear you.
Sharon Faye:
Can you do it again? Can you do it again faster? Why can't you? Oh cool, oh, this is cool. Like, how do you say it, castanetos?
Walter Zaga:
And I continue to work with this. I do classes, workshops, a lot of activities with corporate activities, team building, and I share all my what I learned in my Humana with a lot of people.
Sharon Faye:
Right. So you mentioned the workshops that you do. What kinds of people do you work with? How do you think that the abilities that you mentioned before can contribute to people, let's say, that have block in the communication, because when I teach drama in English, for instance, I help people that have this kind of block in speaking English. So can you share with us what can you contribute with dancing and percussions and everything that you teach in your workshops?
Walter Zaga:
Okay, I'm going to try. First of all, it's a good communication. When we start to play, one of the first things you need to have is listening, and this is something that we need in all the things in the life and in the company. It's very important how to listen, learn to listen.
Walter Zaga:
And in the music is one of the first things that we need to do, and we do a lot of exercise. I ask something with the rhythm and you need to answer the same phrase, and this is a lot of exercise, that we need to learn how to listen and how the body can express itself, to say what I feel or what I express.
Sharon Faye:
Can you give me an example of something that you do in your workshop? Let's say I'm a little bit shy now. I'm scared to do something like this, but can you show me something like a first?
Walter Zaga:
class. I'm going to answer this exercise. In a round Everybody walks at the same time, like in the same pools. It's good also to feel each other. This is a good exercise to feel each other, and everybody knows to walk. We do walk in the same place and I start to ask you I do, for example, pa pa, pa, pa pa, and you answer Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa Okay. I do something different. Okay, if you are in the same place, I can hear the set. I can hear you more.
Walter Zaga:
But, it's okay, it's an exercise to what I'm here, I can express with my body. This is one of the exercises.
Sharon Faye:
Wow, this is wonderful. I think it can be really, really helpful. Also, in drama lesson we have something similar to it, because we do lots of things with our body and, you know, let's dive right into the thing that we said that we're going to talk about, and it's the challenge for Spanish speakers with English. So do you have any kind of example, maybe from your experience with, you know, with difficulties with English, do you have difficulties in English that you want to share?
Walter Zaga:
I think the harder things in Spanish speaker face when learning English is a pronunciation. We discuss so many different sounds that don't exist in Spanish, like the three sounds the. Yeah Right, we don't have in Spanish.
Sharon Faye:
So what do you have instead of the?
Walter Zaga:
No, we have another. I don't know right now, but we have the, the or the, the Tomato, the or the, but it's different, it's it's. It's hard to meet the same. It's a, but it's, it's okay. We need to practice and to feel comfortable with the pronunciation.
Sharon Faye:
Absolutely, absolutely. And what else do you think people will find difficult when they speak Spanish and they try to speak in English?
Walter Zaga:
Other difficult ladies. The Spanish and English have different words, others birds, things and even different. So the general general for nuns no.
Sharon Faye:
Nouns yeah.
Walter Zaga:
Nouns Try to apply in Spanish government rules to English can lead to minimum different difficult world like Mino's Bers and you remember I don't know if you saw this show.
Sharon Faye:
It was like back in the 70s on the BBC 40 Towers with John Cleese from Monty Python. Yeah, there was a guy there. He was a waiter, emmanuel, do you?
Walter Zaga:
remember.
Sharon Faye:
And, wow, I remember this episode. It was really really so funny. It was hilarious when 40 is telling Emmanuel to take the butter to the dining room and he said and 40 always was bragging as if he speaks no Spanish, but instead he wasn't really a Spanish speaker, okay, he was British. He couldn't really say it properly and Emmanuel obviously didn't know English. So once 40 came out with yeah, take the butter to the dining room. And Emmanuel was burro, burro, burro, burro and he said burro, I'm mucho burro, ali. Something was stupid, you know, until his wife came and everything started to come in place. But it was really funny. You know, emmanuel, yeah, yeah.
Sharon Faye:
It's so different.
Walter Zaga:
Also in Spanish. It's not the same from us to Mexican, argentinian, I don't know, costa Rica. We have a different accent, different words to say the same thing. We say different, like you, in English, but the same.
Sharon Faye:
Excuse me, hold on. I mean, the grammar that you use for Spanish, for Latin Spanish, is the same grammar that you use for Spanish. In Spanish it's the same.
Walter Zaga:
Yes, but we use what? When you talk, you talk in different way. In Spain it's not the same, like in Chile, like we understand. The accent is different, maybe the words are different. In Spain the avocado they say avocado, and in Chile they say palta the same thing and in Argentina.
Sharon Faye:
In Argentina is avocado Palta.
Walter Zaga:
Como For example in Mexico, is avocado Okay, and what did you?
Sharon Faye:
say what did you say? Come again, palta, palta, it's avocado in. Argentina. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah that's so.
Walter Zaga:
There are a lot of things like Pina in Mexico, I think they say Pina, or in Colombia and we say Anana, anana.
Sharon Faye:
Ananas, ananas, americans say Ananas and Pineapple. Okay, so now let's move on to something else. We promised to discuss a little bit about British slang and Argentinian slang. So, walter, can you teach me something Argentinian slang? Let's say I don't know how do you say in Argentina when someone is cool.
Walter Zaga:
Okay, in Argentina, when something is cool, we say someone is cool, we say grosso Like grosso.
Sharon Faye:
We say grosso yes.
Walter Zaga:
Okay. We say super cool. Additionally, we have we use a lot of re regrosso sometimes.
Sharon Faye:
Wow, yeah, like Italians. Yeah, let me try. Super cool, you say, it's what come again. Regrosso or re lindo when something is cute, re lindo, okay. What else? We say it's brilliant or mint. Can you repeat after me?
Walter Zaga:
Is that again Brilliant?
Sharon Faye:
It's brilliant yeah, it's brilliant. Or you can say mint, mint, yeah, mint, uh-huh. And if they find, let's say, if you find, something that it's really really funny, right, and you might say, oh, it's hilarious, yeah. Or you can say, uh, cracking up, it's cracking up Cracking up. Yeah, it's all about the quirky expressions. If we quirky expressions, I am very expressive with my face, right.
Walter Zaga:
Absolutely. Here in Argentina, when something is funny, we say it's a cago de risa.
Sharon Faye:
Como.
Walter Zaga:
It's cago de risa.
Sharon Faye:
Hold on, hold on. Me cago de risa, me cago de risa. Yes, did I say it okay.
Walter Zaga:
Yes, perfect Okay.
Sharon Faye:
Which later?
Walter Zaga:
I translate to I am louthing my butt off.
Sharon Faye:
So, yeah, it's a bit more colorful, right? Yeah, Definitely. So in speaking of colorful, did you know that the British have a slang word for someone who is annoying? Yeah, you know they. You might say that um, here's um plonker. It's quite amusing, isn't it? A plonker?
Walter Zaga:
Plonker.
Sharon Faye:
Yeah, plonker is a plonker. Do you know any plonkers? Do you have plonkers in your life Water? I have plenty of plonkers.
Walter Zaga:
It's a shame, but yes, we have here in Argentina. You know, we have one word, it's boludo.
Sharon Faye:
Boludo yeah, I know this word, yeah, so what?
Walter Zaga:
does it mean it's like an idiot?
Sharon Faye:
Yes, I know many boludos, lots of boludos.
Walter Zaga:
But we say also in a friendly way, like boludo. When you call someone like I'm a brother, we say in the good way also.
Sharon Faye:
Yeah, like mate, like mate. But you say boludo, although mate is, you know, is a friend, right? Yeah, yeah, so boludo can be a friendly way to talk to someone that you really know well.
Walter Zaga:
Also when we play soccer. We say boludo. We can use like a good way or a bad way.
Sharon Faye:
Wow. So it's really fascinating how languages can be so different yet so similar right In expressing emotions and connecting with others. This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing your insight, walter.
Walter Zaga:
Thank you, charlotte, my pleasure. This was very, very, very funny and thank you.
Sharon Faye:
Yeah, thank you so much and I hope people will like this video. Thanks, walter, that was really really fun. Thank you guys for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it and I recommend that you watch this video. That is all about British slang as well and don't forget to subscribe, if you haven't done so, and leave us a like and comment, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.