SPANISH ISN´T ALL GREEK TO VANESSA
By JACKIE PETERSON
Speakers of the English lan guage who live in foreign places sometimes find themselves tripped up by the language barrier. Or maybe downright walled in by it. Vanessa Bernal, 27, is a trilingual (English, Spanish, French) Mazatlan native who has returned home after living and studying in Europe. She ran into the language barrier herself while on an extended visit with her sister in the Czech Republic. If you think Spanish is a hard language to master, you ought to try Czech, considered one of the world’s most difficult languages to learn. While in Prague, Vanessa noticed that people in the foreign colony had many frustrations trying to deal with everyday situations. “And besides, people in Prague are not that friendly,” she adds. But somebody had taken note of the problem and was in the process of setting up a multilingual service around the time that Vanessa left to return to Mexico. Why not start something similar here, she thought. Mike Veselik, publisher of the Pacific Pearl, had been thinking of the same thing. So the two of them got together and formed an enterprise called Personal Bilingual Assistant Services. Vanessa is handling the public relations for the fledgling company, and she’s also doing the work until more employees are needed. The way Vanessa describes it, a PBA rep will act as a person’s Spanish- speaking advocate in Mazatlan. And a bit of a concierge, too. She talks of “putting together clients and service providers - and doing the communicating if necessary.” The business has a call-in service that can deal with day-to-day problems with gardeners, maids, auto mechanics, plumbers, it can find you a recommendable doctor or dentist, or as Vanessa says, “we can call up the distributor when you want to order three cases of beer for a party.” This type of problem solving, mostly by telephone, is available to subscribers for a monthly fee. In addition, the service can provide foreigners with help in applying for immigration documents, can do unofficial translations of such items as bills of sale or contracts. Fees vary with the amount of time spent on the task. A graduate in international relations and tourism from the Technological Institute in Mon-terrey, Vanessa learned idiomatic English while living with a family in Minneapolis for a year. She later returned to the United States for college studies in Boston and while there, she worked as a camp counselor for a summer. While abroad, she studied French in Paris, and she also picked up a smattering of Czech during her months in Prague. The Personal Bilingual Assistant Service is located next door to the Pacific Pearl offices in the Golden Zone, beside the Banamex building. The phone number is 913-0672. PBA SITE

 

 

 

 

 

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