Pasapalabra

This entry is going to be a little bit different, in that it doesn’t really involve going somewhere and seeing things. However, Pasaplabra, one of the most famous game shows in Spain, has definitely been a vital part of my experience here. Pasapalabra is a trivia/word based game show that pits one contestant against the winner of the previous show. Each contestant has two people who help them in the first few rounds, in that if they miss a question or don’t know it is passed to one of their helpers. The goal of the first few rounds is to gain points, which are then converted into seconds for the final round. In the final round each contestant gets a wheel of every letter in the alphabet. The host will read them a definition or description of a word either starting with the letter (for more common letters such as a, b, c) or a word that contains the letter (for less common letters such as ñ). The contestant has to answer for each letter as quickly as possible, and if they don’t know it, they “pasapalabra”, or pass on that word. If they have enough time to go around the wheel multiple times they will be able to guess at that word another time. This show has been important for me for a few reasons. One is that it’s a fun show to watch. I ended up getting really invested in the results, looking them up even if we didn’t get back in time to watch it. Another reason is the bond it allowed me to form with my roommate and my host mom. There is a word in Spanish called “sobremesa”, which basically refers to the lengthy conversation that occurs at the lunch or dinner table as everyone is enjoying each other’s food and company. My roommate and I would have great conversations over dinner with our host mom, and oftentimes the catalyst for that was that Pasapalabra ran until 8:45 even though we started eating at around 8. Whether we were talking about how much we hated Javier, or how Paz would always be the greatest of all time, Pasapalabra allowed us to have conversations we never would in the United States, which seems to have a culture of eating as fast as you can and leaving. Sobremesa is definitely something that I’ll miss about Spain. The final, and possibly most important aspect of Pasapalabra was that it served as an indicator for my ability at Spanish. The first week I could barely understand anything the host was saying, and the show just didn’t make that much sense to me. However, now I can understand why a word makes sense with the definition, and the first time I guessed a word before the contestant did a single tear of joy ran down my face. Pasapalabra has definitely become the most unusual yet effective method of cultural immersion that I’ve experienced here.

Here's Paz, 54-time champion. Legend of the game, legend of my heart.