Being Funny in a Foreign Language

I am a self-professed word nerd. I love words in all their forms: spoken, written, sung. It’s one of the reasons I’m such a reader and rabid music fan. I love their ability to take me places and make me feel deeper than I already do. 

It’s also why I love languages. I love learning words in other languages, like calcetines (my favorite word to say in Spanish) or dentifricio (my favorite word to say in Italian) and learning how mundane things such as socks and toothpaste sound so different and vibrant in other languages. 

Spanish is the only subject that came easily to me. Otherwise my scholastics were hard earned. I followed in the daunting footsteps of my two older sisters, Elena and Diana. From where I stood their academic excellence came effortlessly courtesy of a natural intelligence that made things look easy. I’m also convinced Elena has a near photographic memory similar to my Dad and his before him. 

My sisters are both brilliant writers, another thing that seemed to flow effortlessly for them, from where I stood.  They could write a paper in a weekend that would be better than anything I could toil away at for weeks. I still think about some of the English assignments Elena wrote, one was a modern version of the Samson and Delilah parable where in her take Samson was a long haired outcast busing tables at the local diner, which she wrote on looseleaf paper with one of those orange barrel Bics with the blue caps as easily as if she was writing a grocery list. Or how she got asked to re-write the lyrics to a popular song while telling a story about herself. She took Tom Petty’s melancholic masterpiece “Crawling Back to You” changing “It was me and my sidekick, He was drunk and I was sick” to “It was me my kid sis, She was a punk and I was a bitch,” swapping his story of divorce with her complicated relationship with high school, her hometown, and her younger sister. 

They were a tough act to follow. I learned consistency and extra effort were my way into English, science, and math (especially math, I still don’t know how I passed Geometry!!) And then there was Spanish, the one place things flowed, the only subject that came easily. Looking back I think it comes down to two things: memorization and a willingness to sound stupid. Repetition is my jam and so is memorization. This also came in handy with my short lived career as a high school theater kid: new script, no problem. A lot of learning a language is repetition - but more than that it’s a willingness to sound silly, or pronounce something wrong. My willingness to fail is what I think truly unlocked Spanish for me. I didn’t care what I sounded like. I was willing to keep going until I got it right.  

It wasn’t just that I enjoyed Español. I liked being someone else, literally, since we had to have a Spanish name. Unsurprisingly, there was no equivalent for Themi, so I became Pilar. Pilar Ortega was my favorite character from Falcon Crest, a nighttime soap opera I grew up watching, played by the stunning Kristian Alfonso (before she became Hope Brady, one half of one of the biggest couples in soap history, Bope aka Bo & Hope on Days of Our Lives). Looking back, this nod to soaps feels like a natural connection to learning Spanish, the language of the telenovela, but I digress!

Pilar gave me a new name, but speaking Spanish is what really allowed me to be someone else. I think the ability to speak another language is a true super power. I grew up around Greek being spoken by my parents and grandparents. As the fourth of five kids, by the time it was my turn to go to Greek school, my older siblings were already over it and I wasn’t forced to go. My parents would speak Greek around us when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. Genius. Talking about someone when they’re in the room and they have no idea what you’re saying. Super Power. 

But I didn’t learn the real power of speaking another language until my 20s, freedom. I took a year of Italian in college and just like Spanish it flowed.  I revelved in learning it and speaking it. Such a lyrical, euphoneous language, with the beauty and sensuality of the double s instead of an x, SWOON! So when I planned my first post college trip, Italy was the obvious choice.

I bought Beginenrs Italian to brush up for weeks before we left. From the moment we landed at Fiomencino and hailed a cab, I was in it: embracing any and every chance I had to speak the language. Even getting an opportunity to use my favorite word (dentifricio) when our bags were lost and we had to buy everything from toothpaste to underwear while we waited for them to turn up. 

That Italy trip was memorable for so many reasons but what sticks with me 20 years later is the joy I got from speaking the language, engaging with locals, even calling a pensione in Venice looking for my friend because this was before smart phones, when you still used a phone to make phone calls ;) Being able to make that call and get by with what I knew left a lasting impression on me. 

Your passport can take you anywhere, but to really unlock the travel experience, language is where it’s at for me. 

Ever since Italy, I learn a handful of words - even if it’s as simple as please and thank you -  anytime I visit a new country. There is only one time I learned them but didn’t use them and that unfortuatne honor goes to Icleandic. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I’m screwed if I can’t write a phonetic equivalent to help learn the pronunciation. 

As I prepared for my recent trip to the Netherlands, I had a strong desire to not have an Icelandic repeat. I was also traveling with someone I knew would enjoy making the effort with me. Mary is a polyglot, fluent in American Sign Language and a beginner in Spanish. So I knew practicing some Dutch would be up her alley.

Off I went to Amsterdam with an index card loaded with common words and phrases to try my tongue at Dutch! I started small with a simple hoi (hello) at the passport control desk. The next day I was using everything I learned at the breakfast buffet when a local skyrocketed my confidence by saying my pronunciation was good. Whether or not that’s true is irrelevant, it was the encouragement I needed to keep going!

I used it whenever I could with excitement and joy as if it was a secret I was trying to share. Each time I shared my secret I was met with surprise, a smile, and sometimes laughter. I threw in a thank you (bedankt) after placing my dinner order and the waitress giggled. I don’t think she was laughing at me. I like to think she was surprised by the effort. 

I was excited to try a new language and share it along the way. As my dear friend Mario recently broke it down for me, “excitement is just your light being reflected back at you.” Although I was wearing a helmet - a dead givewaway that I’m a foreigner because the Dutch do not wear helmets - I never felt more like a local than when I was on two wheels, riding through the Dutch countryside with Mary, saying “hoi” to many a bike that would pass me by. Getting a hoi in return was such a thrill, I swear it powered my pedals (for more on our two-wheeled adventure see Bohemian Rhapsody). The Themi on two wheels is my favorite version of me. She is free, fearless, and friendly because she is the most herself when riding a bike.

I also really enjoy the Themi who tries hard to be a polyglot. It will come as no surprise that one of my biggest dreams is to become fluent in another language. I know enough to be dangerous in Spanish, even get a few laughs. Being funny in a foreign language is as close to fluent as I’ve ever come. I will never forget that language exchange Mary and I went to in Córdoba (see The Way You Make Me Feel) where I made some joke about being an abuela because I go to bed so early. The laughter I got in return made me feel downright invincible. I mean give me a goddamn cape and I could have flown right out of there!

The polyglot wannabee in me pushes herself outside of her comfort zone and isn’t afraid to fail. It’s something I cherish. I think it’s good to fall on your face, figuratively of course.  In real life I’ve done it twice and I do not recommend it. Figuratively I fell on my face in the Netherlands, just not in the language you’d expect. 

I went to lunch at Mylos, the Greek restaurant in Alkmaar, one day while Mary was doing an audition. I threw out a couple of “efcharisto’s”(thank you) while ordering but that was it. I had time to kill before Mary’s audition ended so I called my mom, and as the good Greek mother she is, she encouraged me to use the little Greek I know to tell them the meal was delicious and that I’m Greek. So I did it for my mom and my Papou Al who would always say Greeks are everywhere. Or with his sweet stutter, "you, you…you know Greeks are everywhere."

On my way out of Mylos, I used my minimal Greek to tell them my name and that the food was delicious. The few second pause that followed felt like an eternity while they figured out…oh she’s trying to speak Greek. If there is one thing I know for certain it’s that my Greek stinks. My mom is keen to jokingly remind me and let’s not forget I got laughed out of a store in Athens for my lackluster pronunciation. Back at Mylos, those few seconds of comprehension were enough to shake my confidence and scramble my brain so that when they responded in English with “Oh, you’re Greek?” I responded with sí instead of yes, which logically led them to ask if I was Spanish. It was as awkward as it sounds! 

I called my mom to let her know how unsuccessfully it went and we both had a good laugh. No matter the outcome, it made me smile to think of Papou Al,  since this was the second time his spirit had visited this trip. The first was walking the streets of Amsterdam and seeing a poster along the sidewalk for Anna Vissi, his favorite Greek singer. I guess the Greeks really are everywhere Papou. 

On our last full day in Alkmaar, Mary and I had breakfast at the most charming cafe, Groenlokaal or Green Room. The Dutch do a lot of things right, including the cozy cafe game, as evidenced by Groenlokaal. We both noted how good the music was from a jazz and soul station. I told Mary how it reminded me of my other Papou, my beloved namesake, Edward. Papou Ed loved smooth jazz. Whenever we were in his car the radio dial was locked on WNUA 95.5, smooth jazz, the music cool and relaxed just like he was. 

I went to pay the bill and I told the man behind the counter it was the best coffee in Alkmaar and I only wish we had found it sooner. I noticed an accent in his gracious response so I asked where he was from, "Athens" he said. I smiled and asked “po se lene?” (what’s your name). "Christos" he said and I responded with “chero poli” (pleased to meet you), “me lene Efthemia” (my name is Themi). It was as natural as riding a bike and felt just as good after my muddled interaction at Mylos the day before. 

After pleasantries in Greek we had a lovely conversation in English about what brought him to Alkmaar, summer love that became marriage and kids, and how often he gets to see his family in Greece. We also talked about the importance of learning the language, how he tried sending his kids to the Greek school in Amsterdam and my own experience of not even getting to Greek school. Christos restored my confidence to keep trying if for no other reason than to have an interaction that lovely again. 

I floated out of Groenlokaal on satisfaction and sentimentality. I knew my Papous would have been proud of that Themi. At that moment I wanted to catch the next flight to Athens and park it there for the next six months to learn Greek by forced immersion. As we walked down the street I admitted to Mary another of my big linguistic dreams, to learn Greek while my parents are alive, so I can speak it with them and feel more connected to them and to my dearly departed yiayias and papous. And if it can connect me with more people like Christos as I continue to travel, icing on the proverbial cake. And perhaps that is the greatest super power of another language, connection. 

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