Blood Meridian occasionally features untranslated Spanish dialogue. We poor souls with nary an inkling as to the language are reduced to either:
- accepting our ignorance (in accordance with the characters themselves),
- muddling through with Latinate intuitions,
- or consulting an online translator at each foreign line.
Those of us with a powerful need to know everything are forced to choose the last option, but few things are as frustrating as interrupting the reading experience. Learning a whole new language just to read a book is probably ridiculous, but how about just enough to get by?
This series aims to teach the minimal subset of Spanish to seamlessly read Blood Meridian, and this entry covers everything necessary for the first 4 chapters.
Some words everyone can be expected to know already. For example:
sí – yes.
no – no / not.
Fortunately we don’t need to understand conjugation for basic reading, so we can skip that whole rigmarole. Articles, for example:
un – a / an.
una – a / an.
el – the.
la – the.
los – the.
las – also just the.
People:
el muchacho – the boy. In Blood Meridian, this is the protagonist.
el caballero – the horseman, or gentleman. To help remember, it shares a root with “cavalry” in English.
Things:
la cárcel – the jail. To help remember, it shares a root with “incarcerate” in English.
las botas – the boots. To help remember, do I even need to finish this sentence?
el trabajo – the work. As a verb it is trabajar, and remembering one makes the other easy.
Basic verbs:
hay – there is / there are.
está – is.
aquí – here. Often used in concert with the two above.
And basic adjectives:
borracho – drunk.
sucio – dirty.
Checkpoint
At this point, you should be able to understand the following sentences. To avoid spoilers, I did not take specific phrases from the book, but rather combined the vocabulary used. Your midterm exam:
El muchacho está en la cárcel.
No hay trabajo.
El caballero está borracho.
Reveal answers
The boy is in jail.
There’s no work.
The gentleman is drunk.
Hay un muchacho aquí
El trabajo no está aquí.
Hay un caballero en la cárcel. No está sucio.
Reveal answers
There is a boy here.
The work isn’t here.
There’s a gentleman in jail. He’s not dirty.
You may notice that, unlike in English, “no” precedes the verb. Another thing to note is that the subject can be left out; “El muchacho está en la cárcel” becomes “Está en la cárcel.” Onto more verbs:
quiere – wants. It shares a root with “query,” “quest,” and “acquire” in English.
sabe – knows. It shares a root with “savvy” in English.
dice – says. It shares a root with “dictate” and “diction” in English.
trabajar – do you remember this one?
Two are more “commanding.”
venga – come.
dígame – tell me. This can be a greeting.
Now the interrogatives. McCarthy doesn’t like using question marks, so these will not be nicely telegraphed:
qué – what.
quién – who. This will be often used in concert with “sabe” for “quién sabe.” Who knows?
The final exam
Dígame.
Qué dice el caballero.
Quién sabe.
Reveal answers
Tell me.
What says the gentleman?
Who knows.
Venga. El muchacho quiere las botas.
El caballero no sabe.
Quiere trabajo. Está borracho.
Reveal answers
Come. The boy wants the boots.
The gentleman doesn’t know.
Wants work. He’s drunk.
And that’s all the Spanish you need to know for the first four chapters!