So I take Mango, the big golden dog, to the vet because she has some persistent ear crud going on. El doctór, who is lovely and kind, the same guy who took the disgusting worm things out of Boo, scrapes a little sample off Mango’s ear, scrapes it onto a slide and examines it for quite some time under two different microscopes. Looking, turning knobs. Spraying some stuff on it. Turning the slide, looking some more.
Finally, he turns to me and, very somberly, says, "Jeest."
"What?" I ask, a little panicked.
"Jeest," he says. "JEEEEST."
I ponder this for a moment. What is jeest, I think to myself. That sounds pretty serious, but… familiar somehow. "What is jeest?" I ask him.
"Jeest! Jeest!" He’s practically shouting now in his enthusiasm for me to understand. "Jew know, JEEEEESSSSTTTT."
I’m terribly slow and confused by this time. Jew should have given it away, but, no, I don’t get it. "Is that Hey-E-Essay-Tay [G-I-S-T]?" The H in Hey pronounced like the H in Chutzpah. Which would be the phonetically-correct Spanish spelling of Jeest. If there were such a word. I was thinking if I could spell it, see the word in my head, maybe I’d have a clue.
"NO! YGRIEGA-A-AH-ESSAY-TAY!" He is shouting now.
"Oh," I say. "Yeast."
"What?" he asks.
"Yeeeest." I say. "Yuh, yuh, yeeest."
"Jeeest," he says, trying to make the sound. "Juh, juh, jeeest."
He cannot say yeast. He tries, he tries very hard. But it will only come out jeest. We have a good giggle over this. It takes so little to amuse us over here in the land of gallo pinto. Er, GAH-joe PEEN-toe.
Mango is fine, by the way. Jeest all cleared up.
I was gifted with a towel embroidered with my name, Yenifer. I hope I would’ve gotten the jeest. Check the following site out for the Spanish. There is so much out there available for free.
http://www.fodors.com/language/
Hugs,
Jen
Mango could NOT be cuter. Except….We have Mango’s twin…Dude, our very gordo yellow Lab we adopted from Haco! He is adorable.
Hope those ears are going to be all better real soon.
Thanks Jen for a great Spanish learning site! Best I’ve seen.
“What’s all this talk about jeest” – AnnaRosanaDana.
Never heard of it in the ears before.
Was she shaking her head a lot?
Is your house concrete?
Mine is and I continuely fight
hongus (mold/mildrew)! Moho is another word for it. I got a lot of moho ’round chere…
Thanks, Deb. She is a great dog, just lovely!
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Re free vs. paid Spanish courses: If you’re looking for just enough Spanish to get around while traveling, Fodor’s is a good site, very well laid out. There are others, too. And some good ones to practice the sounds – which is critical – like Yabla. (I don’t think Yabla is free, though.) Just depends on your goals. If you are living, or traveling for an extended time in a country, well, we found we outgrew the free sites pretty quickly.
If you want to speak a language, be able have conversations, you need total immersion for months, living where no one speaks your native tongue. Or a course.
We’ve searched and tried many courses, free and paid, we’ve spent hundreds of dollars learning Spanish. We like Rocket because you get a good solid course for only $99 for the instant download. So you can put it on your iPod or MP3 player and learn while you jog or drive, whatever. Pimsleur and Rosetta are also excellent courses, just way more expensive. The Bi-Lingual America course was great, but just too expensive and complicated to stick with.
Right now, we have a Spanish tutor come to our house three mornings a week for two hours at a time, $300/month. The boys are practically fluent. Hal is too intellectual to think fast but he knows the language and is way better than me. I’m still the adventurous one of the two of us: I just start talking and hope the words come out right… It’s funny, once I get going and screwing it up, he can step in then and sort it out. He’s so appalled by my butchering the Spanish, he gets out of his head and into the conversation!
Also, Hal has been teaching English to ticos twice a week and this has been very helpful with his Spanish. He doesn’t “only speak English” in the classroom because he has to explain too many things. It’s also the only immersion he gets so it’s very helpful. You could teach a class and not know very much Spanish, though, and it’s a great way to get your ears attuned to the Spanish sounds.
Rosana, I think because we are up high in the mountains, we don’t get so much jeest and mold, although I had to take the closet door off so all my clothes didn’t smell. But mostly we are good – just closed spaces seem to really suffer.
Yeah, tons ‘o head shaking and she was just not well. Brown guck filled her ears. So we did an ear wash, anti-mites drops (although that was just to really kill anything in there that might like jeest), then a special formula of drops which really killed it. Don’t know what’s in it, but it worked. Did this like twice a day for about 10 days and it did the trick!
Jeest? Well my little Beagle always has the “jeest” in her ears and I often (every 2 weeks) have to clean them up. Sometimes having your “best friends” here in Costa Rica can be alot of work, especially with my long haired GSD whom I have to constantly remove knots from, but of course this never surpasses the joy and happiness they bring. So here’s to all the animals of the world! 😉
PS: It’s me…CuriousG from SellingCR and I finally thought I would drop by considering your link is on my frontpage and lately I just havent had the time to stop over and comment. Pura Vida and happy bloggin in CR!
Well, hello CuriousG, I’ll have to visit your site… although I think I have. But I’ll go again. Yeah, the jeest: they gave me some mysterious drops, had to be specially forumlated. When I go back, I’ll ask what it is and post it. Probably hydrogen peroxide and water, or baking soda and water… Pura vida a usted!
Oh, I did visit your blog(s) the other day. Very slick and impressive! Good job.