Ray's Heraldo!

The common thinking among educators is that children need to be exposed to other languages before the age of twelve, because the brain catches the sounds much better. After that age, the receptors in the brain close off, and it is much harder to hear and say the sounds. I have long believed it to be true, and our trip to Spain confirmed it.

Don was not exposed to Spanish when he was young; I think it wasn't until he met me that he paid much attention. In our 35 years of marriage, he has never had much occasion to pronounce Spanish, and when he did, he tried hard, but it was very difficult for him. So when we went to Spain, I knew it would be a challenge.

In Sevilla, the main tower next to the cathedral is called the Giralda.

Don had no trouble pronouncing that word . . . he was very proud.

Later that day, which was the warmest day we had had, we decided to get some ice cream - helado in Spanish. Near our hotel was a delightful ice cream store named Raya's (pronounced rye-as). It was similar to some of the ice cream stores here, except all of the "stuff" is already on top of the ice cream, and they scoop it out into a cup (taza). Unfortunately, Don struggled with saying helado, and Raya's was beyond possibilities. So what came out was Ray's Heralda. So for the rest of the trip, when we were searching for ice cream, we instead said, "We want some Ray's Heralda." And no matter what we called it, it tasted really good!