Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Free language lessons. Curs d'idioma gratuït

I went into the butcher's today to get some meat for another Ferran Adrià recipe, and I asked the butcher to cut the fat off the piece of meat.  Now, the word for fat in Catalan is two different words.  You can have 'gras' and its various conjugations for masculine, feminine, singular and plural or greix which is the noun.

He anat al carnisseria avui per comprar una mica de carn per un altre recepte de Ferran Adrià, i he demanat que el carnisser treure el greix del carn.  El dificultat és que en català teniu dues paraules que en anglès diuen lo mateix.  Teniu gras, i els seus conjugacions i greix que és un nom.  Totes dues en anglès són 'fat'.


This guy was good too, he gave me an explanation, without the adjective/noun elements, and had me practice the word, but then the best bit was when I left the store.  He gave me a little test.  He said, if a person is over weight they are......gras.... and what they have too much of on their body is....greix


Aquest tio era molt bo, m'ha explicat - sense les paraules adjectiu i nom, i manava que practicar la vocabulari, però el part millor era quan estava a punt de marxar.  M'ha donat un mini-exam.  M'ha dit: si una persona pesa massa, són.....'grasa'.....i el que porta de sobre està....greix. 


MOST impressive little language lesson, he even gave me a test and ensured that I left the store feeling I had learned something. He may well be a brilliant butcher, but he's no slouch as a teacher either.  Very nicely formulated lesson.

Era una petita lliço molt impressionant, i a sobre m'ha donat un examen per ser segur que marxi amb el sentit que he après una cosa.  Podria ser un carnisser fabulós, però no fa mal com a mestre tampoc.  Un lliço molt ben format.



7 comments:

elpadawan said...

It's funny, I see it the opposite way. There's not two words for fat, but only one English word for "gras" and "graisse" (same thing in French than in Catalan). But that's very nice of him to give you a small lesson/explanation. Just to be sure you got it right, what did you ended up asking him to remove from the meat: greix or gras? :)

J.G. said...

Such a nice little thing for him to do. You probably made his day, too, by paying such good attention.

The Bodhi Chicklet said...

Stupendous butcher you have! I love it when people are open to language and are eager to engage and educate without judgment. As for Eldest's multiple tests....I will sympathize because one Friday a few weeks ago Riley had four tests - the poor kid was so stressed out. And all for....what? At his age it seems crazy. He has tests most days though, and always on the last day of the week there are multiples but FOUR? I wanted to scream. (OK, soapbox put away now) But I'm curious what you ended up making with your recipe.

The Bodhi Chicklet said...

P.S. Fat by any name means I have dunlop disease (where my belly has done lopped over my belt). And what's up with the new verification words - two with punctuation! I will admit I have had some weird spam type of comments on my own blog but what the heck - for me, there are so few people reading that I almost welcome the spam, except for that one with pornographic links, of course. Now I've digressed....

The Bodhi Chicklet said...

Just checking in again to see what my verification is - it's kind of got my curiosity peaked. (Ok, so it's been a slow day socially....)

Here it is: Ulster. icvoto (or maybe not). My last one include a ". and a " ] "

oreneta said...

ElP, it was the greix he removed, and of course you'd see it the other way! Just like I don't understand why you can compress the meanings of both make and do into one verb, fer, in Catalan!

JG; I hope so, it was good fun!

Kim! Oh lallalala...first the annoying captcha. I am not sure why google has bumped it up to such a complex one, but maybe I have an idea. I took the captcha off for about 6 hours today, thinking that it was a waste of time, and a couple of people had complained. I had to delete three spam messages today alone. I am sorry, but I'm not prepared to do that on an ongoing basis. So, I guess I have to apologise to all of you, and leave it up. Blame the spambots I suppose ultimately.

Tests? They are test crazed here, doesn't seem to be any better there does it. I don't remember there being so much testing.....I made vichissoi, but it was warm in the end cause it ain't summer here, and it was country style cause I don't have (or want) a blender and I am not prepared to strain, plus lamb necks cooked for three hours in the oven and chocolate truffles (sort of) I wasn't willing to take chocolate and then add as much butter and cream again, so I simply melted the chocolate (good stuff) spooned it into shape and ran out of time to roll it in cocoa...so I guess it was straight up chocolate and very good indeed. Tasted different for the melting and reshaping...weirdly.

The Bodhi Chicklet said...

Yum - all of it except for the spam and the testing!