Caray, Caray!

I enjoyed the scene with PJ/S and Isabel. I felt it was very intense.

It's been said that the actors had a strained relationship during filming. Maybe that contributed to the intensity of their scenes. As the saying goes "there's a thin line between love and hate.

Thanks again for the pictures, Jean. Hope you have a great weekend.

Prinny
 

Great pictures as always, Jean.

This is kind of off-topic but Mario-related: I recently watched the trailer to Mario’s movie Rockaway. It was only a couple of minutes long so one of the videos I can view with dial-up (even then it took half an hour to load). I won’t be seeing the movie since it is rated R, (and in just those two minutes I saw unspeakable violence and heard very naughty words!) but I did want to see what he looked like. Of course he was handsome as usual, and it was neat to hear him speak English! I noticed he had a distinct accent; does anybody know if this was because of the tough guy character he was playing? Or does he normally speak English without much of an accent? The reason I ask is because I heard Kristina Lilley “Gabriela” on Dame Chocolate speaking English, and she had no accent whatsoever! If I didn’t know better I’d think she had grown up right here in the Midwest! Other characters on that show speak English too, because it is set in Miami. I also read that Danna Garcia knows several languages.

It just astounds me that anybody can be bilingual. I took years of Spanish, starting in fifth grade, and I can only understand the simplest things! And then I took a year of Swedish in college, and I remember absolutamente nada! I don’t even remember the word for “nothing” in Swedish! So these actors amaze me. I was wondering, is it more common for people in their countries to be bilingual? Or do they have to learn just like us? I mean, for Mario to speak English, did he have to study for years? Or did he just grow up that way, so that it is natural to him? As I said, even with years of study, I don’t see how anybody can speak another language fluently, to be able to carry on a conversation, read and write, etc. Yet if I were with them, they could understand everything I say and carry on a conversation, but in Spanish I’d only be able to tell them to pass the butter or ask where the library is. I could also say, “Oh Mario, mi amor!” Lol.
 

Thanks for the shots and comments Jean ;) Sorry I've been MIA from the DB board, but I fell way bahind a few weeks ago and am still trying to catch up with both the recaps and the actual epis.

Prinny - Funny OT story - Richard Gere and Debra Winger HATED each other. Yet their sex scene in "An Officer and a Gentleman" is hailed as one of the steamiest moment in film history. She says she simply took all the anger and disgust she felt and threw it into the scene (and if you look closely, you get an idea of what she means). Interestingly enough, although I like the looks, embraces, and sex scenes between Cimarro and Rojas, I find their kisses a tad disturbing - like they're trying to bite each other's faces off. Not sure if it's supposed to show intensity, but it's a little off for my taste.

Cindy, there is a theory that all children are born with the ability to speak any and all languages in the world, and that as long as they get the right stimulus early on in life they can learn to speak them with flawless pronunciation. The flip side of that theory is that children who don't receive such stimulus by a certain age may never fully develop the ability to speak any language, (there was a movie on the subject called "Mockingbird Don't Sing" in which a girl didn't learn to speak until about age 9, and never fully developed vocabulary or sentence structure). Anywhoo, there is also the belief that if you pick up at least one additional language by a certain age, you will be able to pick up other languages later in life. This isn't to say you can't pick them up without this early boost, it's just harder, and your pronunciation is less likely to be "perfect." Kristina Lilley was born in the States, but moved to Colombia when she was a little girl. Thus, English may well have been her first language, or she might have learned it at the same time as Spanish. Over on "Cuidado," they showed Nailea Norvind, who learned a few languages at a young age (I think her mom spoke 9), speaking perfect English in Miami. If Mario Cimarro has an accent, it could be that either he didn't learn English (or any other language besides Spanish) until later in life (he had a slight accent when he spoke Spanish in LT). I know that Mexican public schools require English in Intermediate school (not sure for how long). I suspect the results are the same as for those that learn it here: some learn and practice and others learn enough to make it through exams and then promptly forget it. Soooo, I guess I'm saying yes, you can learn to speak a foreign language if you work hard and immerse yourself in it (watching TNs and conversing whenever you can find someone who speaks the language), but it's a lot easier if you had some exposure at a younger age. We have some recappers on this blog who took a few years in High school or college and had mostly forgotten it, but are doing better now that they get to hear it in TNs. I myself learned English at about the same time as I learned Spanish (mostly from TV) and thus had a relatively easy time when I took French in high school (though I couldn't carry a conversation in it) and did pretty well in German, Latin, and Italian diction when I sang in the choir. We also have a few folks on this blog who are Jewish. Many (though not all) Jewish children study Hebrew at a young age (again, some carry it through life, and some promptly forget it as soon as they've had their bar/bat mitzvah), and I suspect it's this exposure to a second language at an early age that makes it easier for them to pick up additional ones in life. Off course, my husband dropped out of Hebrew school after a year and ended up doing his Barmitzvah phonetically, so he speaks a handful of words in a handful of foreign languages, but can't carry a conversation in any of them (ok, sometimes he can carry conversations in English!). My suggestion, if you really want to work on your Spanish, is to try to watch TNs with the Spanish captions (and maybe rewatch them with the captions in English) and see if that helps. Also, if there are any Spanish speakers in your church or your work, try to see if you can meet for coffee or something and try to converse.
 

That's fascinating what you said about foreign langauges, Margarita. And it sure makes sense about how you learn them more readily the earlier you were exposed. I remember more Spanish from my fifth grade Saturday classes than all my high school courses combined. And like I said, I remember NOTHING of the Swedish I took in college!

I didn't realize Kristina was born in the states. It's probably true that she learned English and Spanish at the same time. I'd still like to know just how well Mario can speak English though-- if that accent in Rockaway was really his or just the character's. I don't know why, but it just AMAZES me that he can speak English!