06 Jun From English to Spanish

During my second week in the LHIP program, I feel that I have begun settling into the park and community and into my roles as an intern at this park. My supervisor/mentor is encouraging me to “leave a mark,” and I am currently doing that by translating some of the park’s most important handouts and information flyers from English into Spanish. Although I am a native speaker of Spanish, going back and forth between languages still requires a lot of concentration and making connections between the two. I tend to think in English, but Spanish still escapes my tongue a second faster than English does. Because of this I will sometimes mix a few a words here and there or make errors in the grammar. With both languages being rooted in Latin, I began noticing a lot of similarities between the two languages, like the word “natural” being a perfect cognate. Other words differ only by endings, such English words that end in –ist (artist, tourist), and the Spanish translation would just change that to –ista (artista, turista). There are many other simple root word changes just like this example. I was able to finish one program this week while I am now simultaneously completing two others. This week I also got to walk around and take pictures of the park with their very expensive DSLR camera. The camera did most of the work, as I don’t think I was capable of taking a bad picture with it. The park’s unique doughnut shape requires walking through the city to get to the other side of the park, and it’s interesting to see the contrast of Central Street to the wild forest of the surrounding hills. I had the opportunity to shadow a program this week, and am excited to begin presenting some of my own. This week I also finished building my bike, which will be my main mode of transportation while I am here. In my free time I have been riding my bike, reading books, and going on walks and hikes in the surrounding hills. The picture above is one of the numerous thermal water jug fountains in the park that many residents and visitors use to collect the water, which is the park’s primary natural resource.