12 APRIL 11-17, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | PARK HILL SUPERMARKET High Quality! Huge Variety! Wholesale Prices! Fresh fruit, vegetables, meat & seafood 3770 E 40TH AVE. DENVER, CO 80205 Tel: 303-823-3088 EVERY DAY 9AM-7PM Call Elaine Lustig, PhD .......................................................... at 303-369-7770 Needing Your Emotional ....... Animal W/ You? For eligible people who need their emotional support animal to accompany them at/or away from home, I am available to provide the documentation and counseling. CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED cabulary for what you’re working at, so it’s easier for me to talk about things related to politics in Aurora.” But he keeps practicing. “I usually don’t watch much in the way of TV, but when I do, it’s in Spanish,” Coffman says. “Most of the TV I watch is in Spanish. I watch the news in Spanish, new shows in Spanish. Sundays, I love travel shows; there’s a travel show in Spanish that’s really good.” Because he watches local TV news in Spanish, he’s seen Polis speak Spanish, and “I’m impressed by him,” Coffman says. “I’ve seen Mike Johnston on Spanish news pro- grams, and I think he’s pretty good.” Sometimes Coffman even sees himself speaking Spanish on the news. “I think, ‘Oh, my God, you can do better than that,’” he says. Johnston’s twelve-year-old daughter turned him on to Duolingo, the popular language-learning app, and he practices with her and his two boys, who are also trying to learn Spanish. “But my best way to practice is with people,” Johnston says. “At this age for me, the best way is live conversation with na- tive speakers who can help me fi nd the best words and the best phrases.” Jose Salas, a spokesperson for the mayor’s offi ce, helps Johnston with idioms that might not make sense with a simple translation from English to Spanish. “I practice a lot with him on ‘I think this is how I’m going to say this’ but it’s not the right way,” Johnston says. “He’s pretty good,” Salas remarks, add- ing that “it’s usually just like one word” that might need fi xing. Johnston says he’s trying “to make sure not to make the most classic Spanish mis- take for a novice, saying ‘Estoy embarazada’ when you think you’re saying ‘I’m embar- rassed’ but you’re saying ‘I’m pregnant.’ You try to avoid those.” Once while talking to Spanish-language media off-camera, Coffman made a more embarrassing version of that classic mistake: He mixed up the word for pride (“orgullo”) with the word for orgy (“orgía”). “They all just sort of stopped,” he says. “Then, in their kindness, they all started laughing.” Editor’s note: Reporter Bennito L. Kelty grew up in a bilingual household in Aurora, with an Irish-American dad and a Mexican mom (his father was actually his mother’s English teacher when they were in their twenties). “I didn’t take studying it seriously until I worked at the border,” Kelty says. “I worked in Southern Arizona for more than three years and interviewed Spanish speakers on both sides of the border, including migrants. I also wrote stories in Spanish and translated others. I won a fi rst-place Arizona Press Association award in 2021 for best Spanish- language community reporting. “All of my mom’s family is in Mexico, and I visit the country every year,” he adds. “That trip is always a boost to my Spanish, and it would start to slip if it weren’t for the way Denver has been impacted by the migrant crisis. Just about every week, I’m writing about the stories of Venezuelan migrants I interview in their own language.“ ¿Hablas Español? continued from page 10
