Comments on: Culture–Health! Money! and Love! http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/blog/2009/10/culture-health-money-and-love/ Updates, Tips, Tricks, and Other Language Learning Information. Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:26:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Sifrina http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/blog/2009/10/culture-health-money-and-love/comment-page-1/#comment-3407 Sifrina Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:36:55 +0000 http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/blog/?p=135#comment-3407 Wonderful post. In our house (in the US), we say "Salud" when someone sneezes. My husband and I both lived in Latin America (Venezuela and Argentina) in high school/college. We agree that saying this makes the most sense (to us anyway)! When my 7 1/2 year old son's teacher sneezed in class the other day, the entire class said "Bless you" or "God Bless You" to the teacher, but my son said "Salud." This caught everyone off guard, including the teacher, because no one knew what this meant (he said the teacher looked VERY confused). So he explained it means "Health". I thought this was very cool - he taught his teacher and classmates something new - and he then he thought to tell me about it later! Below's a link to some answers to your question about what other cultures say (I can't confirm these though). http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080816003609AAYyh3X Funny how we don't bless anyone or say anything sweet when other involuntary bodily functions are involved (e.g., flatulance). Maybe because there's no need to wish someone health at that point? Wonderful post. In our house (in the US), we say “Salud” when someone sneezes. My husband and I both lived in Latin America (Venezuela and Argentina) in high school/college. We agree that saying this makes the most sense (to us anyway)! When my 7 1/2 year old son’s teacher sneezed in class the other day, the entire class said “Bless you” or “God Bless You” to the teacher, but my son said “Salud.” This caught everyone off guard, including the teacher, because no one knew what this meant (he said the teacher looked VERY confused). So he explained it means “Health”. I thought this was very cool – he taught his teacher and classmates something new – and he then he thought to tell me about it later!

Below’s a link to some answers to your question about what other cultures say (I can’t confirm these though).

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080816003609AAYyh3X

Funny how we don’t bless anyone or say anything sweet when other involuntary bodily functions are involved (e.g., flatulance). Maybe because there’s no need to wish someone health at that point?

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