Incident 1:
It was last Sunday and I was out to lunch (as is the Sunday tradition) with my host parents and my host mom's mom. So in a lull in conversation, because there are a few of those when you are learning a new language, I commented on the boxing match that was happening on the televisions in the restaurant. What I wanted to say is that the boxers were skinny, (they must have been one of the lightest weight classes in boxing as they really were skinny). I was convinced I knew the word for skinny, delgado, so I said that the boxers were skinny in Spanish. They looked at me all confused and I wasn't sure why, my statement was easy enough there wasn't much room for error on my part as I only said a few words. So I repeated my statement again, this time louder as I was convinced I was right, and they continued to give me funny/confused looks like what on earth is she trying to say. Well it turns out somehow what I was saying was that the boxers were drug addicts…whoops. Of course when I got home I went to look up the word for skinny and delgado is indeed one of the words you can use to say this so I'm not sure if they just didn't hear me correctly or what, but whatever I did it made them all think I was saying the boxers were drug addicts, they were all very amused by this mistake…Moral of the story: I'm not going to call anyone skinny/thin for a long time now just in case it gets misinterpreted as me saying they are a drug addict.
Incident 2:
So this next story was on Sunday as well…I guess my Spanish was not at its best on Sunday…
We (my host parents and I) were sitting at the kitchen table just chatting, I was trying to describe to them a place I had visited in the city Saturday night and they were trying to figure out where it was. My host dad thinks he knows where it is and starts describing something about an airplane. I became confused as I was not sure where in the conversation we made the jump to airplanes, but I tried to pretend I understood as he kept talking. Eventually, I came to the conclusion he was talking about a plane crash that had happened in the city and I asked when this plane crash occurred, expressing concern because it sounded like it happened in the heart of the city and that this was a tragedy. Apparently, he was trying to describe a restaurant that had a fake airplane sculpture on its roof that is made to look like an airplane crashed into the restaurant. He was describing this because he thought it was nearby the place that I was trying to describe the location of and he thought I would have remembered this airplane restaurant. I think I would have, but it turns out it was not nearby the place I was trying to describe as I saw this restaurant later that day and everything suddenly clicked in my head. I'm not sure this one is entirely my fault as I was not prepared for a conversation involving a fake airplane crash that turned out to be the description for a restaurant…I mean that would be weird to describe in English, let alone Spanish. Moral of the story….be prepared for very weird topics to come up in conversations. |
| My confused face on Sunday(or most days really). This was taken when I got in the car with my family and had no idea where they said we were going. I was a little concerned when they asked if I needed my water bottle and I declined, thankfully I did not need it….that would have been a tragedy if we were going on a hike in the 92 degree weather. |
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