El Dia Del Desfile

I hope the grammar is good in the title. Anyways, translated out, it means "The day of the parade". This morning I got up extra early to get to work extra early. The Blackhawks Parade is today to celebrate their victory. Yesterday when I was finishing my shift, I asked a co-worker what the translation of "parade" was in Spanish, and he explained that "desfile" is the proper word. He went on to explain that many people say "parada", but it is the improper word. Parada is used to desribe a person standing up, but it is used in a "Spanglish" sense. Okay. That's a lot of info, but interesting.

Why is this taking up real estate in my blog today, you might ask. Well, recently I talked about communication and how important it is. I am working to get back into my Spanish lessons through Rosetta Stone once a week like I had been before studying for my Personal Trainer exam simply so that I can communicate with others more effectively. Many people, Americans born here especially, have an attitude of "...why don't people just learn English?..." But it is this attitude and point of view that gets us nowhere. This is the same attitude that leads us to thoughts that we wished we had less problems or "how are they so lucky?" Instead, if we say, "What can I do to improve myself to better communicate with people," or "How can I become more skilled so that I can overcome my obstacles?" These are the types of mindsets to be in.

Going back to communication and the various words people use: communication is about listening as much or more than about talking or saying something. It is not always the words we are using or what people are telling you verbally. Often times we must listen to what others are really saying, even if it is underlying. For example, someone might say, "It costs too much," when they are really saying, "I haven't realized the value to me yet. How does this (product or service) help me?" Make sense? So some people will use one word and mean one thing and another will use a different word to mean the same thing, and conversely two people can verbally say the same thing but be communicating something totally different. Confusing? It can be, but the better we can learn to listen for vocal cues, body language, tone of voice, and other communication details as well as improving the ways we get our point across, the better we will be at communication, sales, relationships, etc. That's it today...Feliz Desfile! And thanks for reading everyone!