Mission: Urban

This trimester our grammar class has been covering something called the “subjunctive mood”. Sounds pretty scary, huh, like the type of thing that would give your average student nightmares. Our school has an infamous 15 RULES TO UNDERSTANDING SUBJUNCTIVE (I was really tempted to record an MP3 and insert here (like I even know how to do that) of some deep, echoey voice blaring this, but you’ll just have to use your imaginations). The rules are really pretty funny, because I highly doubt that native speakers ever consider these almost mathetmatical equations that we have to learn, but that’s another blog post. It’s really not that big of a deal to understand all in all, but using it - oh man - that’s another story.

Anyways, one of the things that’s been kind of cool about learning it all is that it really seems like it’s a real blending of the language learning / cultural learning process, where the way people talk is such a reflection of their culture. So as we’re learning these 15 RULES TO UNDERSTANDING SUBJUNCTIVE, we actually have to start learning to ask ourselves “but why do they do it this way?”, and we’re gaining a deeper cultural understanding in the process (or, we just don’t get it, and we’ll never speak “subjunctively”, but that too is another blog post).

So last week we covered a rule relating to opinions. Basically, it just boils down to when you’re giving your opinion in Spanish, there are times when you have to use this mood. So all of this lead-up is just to say that the teacher starts the class by telling us this interesting story. One time she was teaching a grammar class like ours, and they were talking about some issue or topic of some sort that may or may not have been related to the 15 RULES… and she asked for the student’s opinions. One of the gringo students replied “no tengo opinión”, which basically just means “I don’t have an opinion”, as I’m sure most of you understood. She told us that NEVER in her life, had she ever heard that phrase. Not that it was technically bad Spanish, or anything like that. It’s just that, if you speak Spanish, you’d never say it because you always have an opinion. Even if you don’t have an opinion, or have never ever thought about whatever topic it may be that you’ve just been asked about, saying “I don’t have an opinion” isn’t an option. You have to pick a side, a point of view, whatever, and give an opinion that you’re claiming as your own. Mind you, you are under no obligation whatsoever to keep that opinion for any length of time beyond the conversation. But saying I don’t have an opinion is the equivalent of saying “you’re not worth my time” - it’s offensive, because you obviously have an opinion, you’re just refusing to share it.

All of this may or may not be the way that native spanish speakers actually talk, I’m still way too ignorant to know. It’s very possible that she was just giving us an interesting story to make a point, or something like that. But, as someone who routinely says “I don’t have an opinion” or the “I can see both sides of that issue” equivalent, I started to see how my latin self could potentially have to diverge quite a bit in this regard.