LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  You know I have talked about fillers often in some of my posts, both in English and Spanish. Today I was reminded of them again because I was watching the Madrid Marathon on TV, which Africans always win as a matter of course. But this year, -surprise- a few Spaniards came close and got second, third, and fourth places, in several categories, full marathon, half marathon, women, men, etc. And at the end of the race, they were interviewed on the spot about how it was, how they felt, why they decided to run, etc. Each of them used the filler "la verdad es que" several times, too many times. "-¿Ha sido difícil correr durante más de dos horas? -La verdad es que correr dos horas no es fácil" "-¿Contenta porque hace buen tiempo? -La verdad es que hace buen tiempo, sí." "-La verdad es que ha corridor usted muy bien. -"Sí, es verdad, la verdad es que sí. "Luckily, they did not interview the 45,000 runners who participated because we would have hea...

On Sunday, April 23, 35,000 runners took to the streets of Madrid on a beautiful spring day. Being clever of sorts, I watched the event on tv which allows one to follow the runners and watch splendid views of the capital of Spain, from many different angles. The winner was a runner from the Congo, Geoffrey Kosuro , as expected. When he crossed the finish line, a youthful reporter jumped in to "interview" the champion. He started with a winning question: "You like Madrid?" not considering that the sportsman, a professional, had not come to Madrid to visit., but to run and make money. Then Mr. Kosuro mumbled some sounds in what was meant to be English but which sounded like Bambara or Swahili. The reporter was insistent and asked: "You come to Madrid nest (he did say nest ) year?" Then the Champ answered in this gibberish not even his mother would understand and to which the youthful reporter thanked profusely. I was nonplussed but said nothing, even to my...