Commentary: Nithya Raman is learning Spanish. What that says about her vision for L.A.

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Set us as preferred Nithya Raman slowly recited the start of her handwritten message to Angelenos.Llegué de la India con mi madre a los seis años.Sé lo que cuesta empezar de nuevo.I came from India with my mother when I was 6.

I know what it takes to start over.The mayoral hopeful was in the green room of Univision’s Westchester studios on Thursday, waiting for an interview with anchor Guad Venegas.He would ask each question in both English and Spanish, and Raman could respond in English.But she hoped to do better than that.Since the start of her campaign, Raman has sprinkled Spanglish into her speeches and sometimes offered whole sentences in softly accented, lightly stilted Spanish.

It’s part of an effort to win over Latinos, nearly half the city’s population and a crucial swing vote , with less than a week to go before election day.“Can you say the whole thing for me?” Raman asked Lauren Perez-Rangel, her Latino outreach senior director, who read the full message in effortless Spanish.Raman repeated it word for word, accent for accent, with no flubs or pauses.“You got it!” Perez-Rangel told her boss.“I hope,” Raman replied.It was showtime.

California Tuesday’s televised debate could be the last time Raman and Bass go head-to-head before the Nov.3 election.Raman, who serves on the L.A.

City Council, grinned when someone said “me vale madre” — I don’t give a damn — on the walk to the studio.She cracked in English, “I doubt that’s true!” when I told an Univision producer in Spanish that no one likes my work.

A cameraman proclaimed “¡Muy bien!” when Raman rattled off an “uno, dos, tres” mic check.Venegas responded in English, “It’s always like that” to Raman’s comment in Spanish that her pronunciation is better than her comprehension.During the interview, Raman raised...