In high-school language classes we learn that barnyard animals, like people, speak different languages throughout the world. Take the common pig, for example. While an American pig will oink oink, a Japanese pig will buubuu. French swine converse with a brusque groin groin, whereas Chinese swine favor a more melodious hu-lu hu-lu. For fun with the whole menagerie, check out these international animal sounds.

Curiously enough — and mercifully for undergraduate American piglets looking to satisfy core language requirements — here in Spain pigs speak with a familiar oink oink. Whether the oink originated in Spain, the United Kingdom, or the United States is a matter of dispute: no sooner does one group take credit for coining the oink than the other two denounce oinking as yet another alarming example of globalization gone wild. In any case, British and American pigs vacationing in Spain find it easy enough to communicate with their Spanish hosts, even if the same cannot always be said for their human counterparts.

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It may pain a writer and confirmed word-nerd to say so, but reading English — as opposed to hearing it, say on TV — will sometimes put a beginning ESL student at a disadvantage, at least when it comes to pronunciation. If it is read more often than it is heard, the word juice might be pronounced “joo-ees,” the word Tuesday might be pronounced “twes-day”; the word built, “bwilt”; the word team, “tee-ahm.” These are honest mistakes. (They may even recall the mnemonic devices you used for spelling tests in grade school.) The student is simply pronouncing the word according to the way it looks.

Just the reverse used to happen in Freshman Comp back home. In Freshman Comp my students would frequently spell words according to how they had heard them. To offer just a few memorable examples from a batch of Othello essays:

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Last week we noted that like any other opiate the Andalusian brasero can occasionally put a relationship to the test. We should also note that it is in fact possible for a couple to share the brasero, in the way that a pair of opium enthusiasts might share a hookah. The problem is that on those nights when partners find themselves enjoying the pleasures of the brasero together, slow-baking in harmony, the impending journey from the brasero to the conjugal bed, a.k.a. the “Bed Run,” will eventually weigh heavily. Because the bed is as frigid as the air, and will remain so until one partner dives in and, at the expense of his or her own warmth, warms it up, the question as to who will make the first run can be a serious one.

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Summers in Andalucía tend to be hotter than the winters are cold, and for centuries local building practices have reflected that fact. The white limestone façades and spacious central patios, the stone floors and shady alleyways — in August, a resident appreciates this kind of thing. The problem is February. Winter in Andalucía can turn quite cold, and when it does, flaws in the built-for-summer design reveal themselves, especially to those of us whose flats have not been retrofitted with central air. On the one hand, it’s true that in winter we don’t have to remember to put the milk back in the fridge, or chill champagne ahead of a celebration. And the spectacle of steam-breath in a living room is kind of amazing. On the other hand, it’s usually mighty fucking cold inside.

Thankfully there is a form of relief: the brasero. Found wherever Andalusians may gather indoors, the brasero is a disk-shaped space heater situated under a central round table. Way back when, hot coals supplied the brasero’s heat; today, hot coils do; but the manner of insulating the heat hasn’t changed: a pleated circular blanket known as an enaguas, or “petticoat,” is draped over the table, making an oven — and lending the whole arrangement the look of an enormous decapitated Pac-Man ghost.

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An American ESL instructor in Spain can expect to use not American but British materials in the classroom. The textbooks, the handouts, the CDs and DVDs…all of these will be British. Because the UK is a member of the EU, British materials are both geographically and bureaucratically more accessible to Spain than American materials. So are British ESL teachers. The difference between the amount of paperwork required for a Brit to legally work in Spain (very little) and the amount of paperwork required for an American to legally work in Spain (boatloads) is astounding.  Point being, most ESL students in Spain study British spelling, British pronunciation, and British usage, and an American stepping in on the scene is advised to remember this, so as not to throw everything off and/or appear totally unqualified to be teaching English.

Americans can adjust readily enough to spelling disparities, to “colour,” “analyse,” “licence” and the like. As English speakers, we know not to get too attached to consistency and logic in spelling, and as American consumers, we have seen British spelling before, in marketing. “Towne” and “centre” come easily enough to me thanks to a strip mall back home named “Towne Centre,” which name for a strip mall is so absurd in so many ways that it cannot be easily forgotten.

Continue Reading Noted Abroad.