It's been almost two months since I started self studying the Spanish language. Because I seem to be improving slower than I expected, I decided to start reading books. Yes I know we can all read online and such but it's so much better to read something in hand physically and not on a screen. 😁
No I'm not a bookworm anymore, nor an "accidental" tsundoku practitioner. 😆 I've sold most of all my books when I started decluttering. It's been a decade or so haha. For the first time in seven or so years I have gone out and online just to buy books or even comics!
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Admittedly I thought it would be easy to learn this language. Why not when there are many Spanish loaned words in Filipino. If only I knew about the most important thing to learn before I started this... 😂 Just knowing Spanish words is not enough to understand sentences.
The verbs and conjugations are so... perhaps the hardest to learn. Haha. And then there's the more complex sentence construction, omg. But mostly I think my laidback and 'anything goes' approach is what's hampering me. 😅
Okay I won't bore you with my complaints so let me just tell you about how hard it is to find Spanish books in bookstores! Who knew it would be quite non-existent!
Let's go a-hunting in bookstores!
Last week I finally decided to buy any Spanish book I could find. After working on my customer's custom temporary tattoo order, I went to the nearest bookstore I know.
Someone told me they were able to buy Spanish books at a certain second hand store almost a decade ago. Well if they had some then they should still have some now right? Off I went to BookSale in Cubao. Unfortunately I never found any. I even asked the sales people but they said they didn't have any. Awww.
Next I went to a National Bookstore branch in the same mall. I asked the cashier and checked the aisles and nothing. Huh. 🤔 Of course I didn't want to give up so I decided to go to the big branch. I believe it is one of the major branches too. Good thing it was just in another mall connected to the first one I went to.
Guess what I found there? 😂 The branch only had one type of Spanish book: two kinds of trilingual dictionaries and nothing else. (English - Spanish - Tagalog) Man, I almost feel sorry for the lack of Spanish literature anywhere. 😂
Bought this one from the available dictionaries.
Of course I was happy to buy one of them. Actually I'm psyched to find it has Filipino translation too! Makes it so much easier. ♥️ However I felt like just this one is not enough.
Before I went home, I dropped by the last book shop in the area. Sadly the Fully Booked branch also didn't have what I was looking for. Tsk tsk.
I guess it's worth noting, Spanish seems to have been completely erased in our culture. Specifically, all the books in the bookstores are in English and Filipino only. 😆 (Except for the other English-Filipino-foreign language dictionaries.) Even the travel books doesn't have any Spanish speaking countries displayed. I saw France, Italy, etc., but no Spain or Argentina, etc. 😂
Must be because of all the hate our ancestors had for the first colonizers? We mostly weren't treated well for 3 centuries. Ugh, imagine a caste system, that's racism + colonialism. 🙄 Well at least it wasn't slavery but still...
Anyway good thing I was able to find something. My efforts did not go to waste. Haha. It's already the 21st century so I will learn Spanish because I want to. It should be way easier than learning Japanese or Korean. Imma learn this first before the other languages. Or I might give up again, who knows. 😂
On Friday I went to another branch of thrift bookstore in another city. Well hey I was able to find some there! Whoa! Too bad I didn't like any of them... 😅 Also the price wasn't low enough for me to even consider buying. Oh well...
I'm not really looking for premium books since I am buying just to familiarize myself with the language. That's it. Unless I become fluent in Español I will not consider buying something premium.
Because of this, I had to find another way to buy the books I needed. Stay tuned for the second part of this post! 😀
Why Are Spanish Books Not Available In Major Bookstores?
Apparently in the 1987 Philippine Constitution (or even the previous one?), Spanish was not included anymore as a national language. No harm done imho because at the time Filipino and English were already prevalently used.
The main reason is (most probably) because there aren't many Spanish Filipinos left. If there are, maybe they use English more often? I dunno, I think they are a dying breed. Haha.
This is so unlike the Chinese Filipinos (Chinoys). They actually put up several Chinese schools where Filipino Chinese (FilChi) and Chinoy children are also taught Mandarin (and Fookien?) among other things.
Also, Arabic is being taught at an early age to our Filipino Muslim brothers in the far southern islands. So you see, it makes no sense to keep a language that almost nobody uses. Thus is the fate of Spanish in the Philippines...
Vintas of Zamboanga by Jojo Lacerona, CC BY-SA 4.0
All is not lost though. We do have Spanish Creole in the country called Chavacano. This can be found in the province of Zamboanga in the Mindanao group of islands. It is still prevalent there as far as I know.
Not sure yet where or which area exactly but I'll find out soon! Any Spanish speaking person (or Spanish language student) would probably not feel too out of place there.
I also read the Chavacano version in Cavite province is already becoming extinct. Might as well go to Zamboanga instead if ever, hehe. That's where I'm planning to go later this year just to hear them use it. (Lord I hope I will be able to go!!!) Also so I can see actual and colorful vintas that I've read in school books when I was a kid! 😄🙏
Ah I am excited to do that so I need to save some money! Haha. Will be going there by ship if I can. Traveling by sea is more fun because I get to see the ocean a lot. Hehe.
Well wish me luck with that plan. For now I will write some more about how I found the Spanish books I got. 😁 Can you guess what I did? Haha.
Related posts:
- For Me Learning Spanish Is...
- Spanish 101: I Said What in Spanish in 2021?
- How I Plan to Learn Spanish Faster on My Own (Part 1)
- Part 2: Steps on How I'll Become Fluent in Spanish Very Soon
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