We are not linguists, but we have had much experience in backcountry travel in Mexico over a period of many years. David Riskind was born on the Texas side of the border but spoke Spanish before he spoke English. Bob Burleson learned his Spanish by exposure and from necessity. Our combined experience has shown us a need for a phrase book of rural Mexican-style Spanish, an explanation of some of the industries and aspects of rural Mexican culture, and some hints on how to get along. As far as we are aware, there is no such book now available commercially that is oriented toward helping the English-speaking traveler in Mexico's backcountry, where restaurants, hotels, taxis, banks, nightclubs, tours, and so forth, are simply not encountered. What you do find are rural folk who speak simple Spanish and who will gladly communicate with someone from another culture who tries to communicate with them. This book is intended to help the user understand the people and lifeways of rural Mexico. This greater understanding will result in more effective communication.
This book assumes that the user has some basic understanding of Spanish pronunciation and grammar. If you don't have this basic understanding, however, you can get it from the brief guide presented here in Part II or from traveler's guides to Spanish available on record or tape almost anywhere in the United States or from the introduction to a Spanish-English dictionary (see chapter 16 for many valuable references and study aids).
This is a first effort. The grammar may not be the best, but that is true of the rural Mexican's grammar also. If you have suggestions for additions, or comments on how to improve this work, please send them to Bob Burleson, Box 844, Temple, Texas 76503. We hope this book will prove useful to everyone from social workers to scientists to just plain hikers and climbers who hit the Mexican deserts and mountains on foot (a pie).
