Spanish Blunders

Part of the joy of learning a language, in my opinion, is definitely when you make funny language mistakes. I shall write some of mine now for your amusement. Also, full disclaimer, there may well be Spanish spelling mistakes in this blog post. I think I’ve written it all well, I checked most of them with Noly, but there might be some.

– One time I was talking to Luci and we were talking about dreams. I meant to say, tuve una fase (I had a phase) but instead said tuve un faso (I had a joint) 😂 not quite what I meant..

– Thankfully after being here for a while my Spanish has kicked in, but to begin with in situations where I really needed Spanish, my mind would go completely bank. A while ago when I was in the supermarket someone had forgotten to put their eggs onto the counter to buy them and I was trying to say something to get their attention and found myself saying ‘ellos!’, which means ‘they!’ 😂 Another time I tried to respond to someone who said ‘have a good day!’ and said ‘por que!’ which means ‘why?’ 😂

– A few years ago when I was here I was at the dinner table with Nolz, his parents and Cristian. They were talking about one of my gap yar pals who’s now married. I was trying to say ‘shes married’ but wasn’t sure on the words so instead tried to use mime, saying “ella” and proceeded to stick my ring finger in Javier’s face. There was a moment’s shocked silence as it seemed like I’d randomly flipped the bird in his face for no apparent reason before I realised, in horror, what it looked like and basically melted to the floor.. 😂 if only I’d had the words…

-There was one day in August where (to be fair I was pretty tired) I would be speaking in Spanish and then I would suddenly say an English word. This doesn’t usually happen to me! I was saying ‘yo voy a el instituto los mondays’ (I go to the institute on Mondays). I think this was happening coz I was just tired and my brain had given up. Didn’t just happen once though happened quite a few times..!

– There’s a song in Spanish that goes “nada es dificil para Dios, todo es posible por quien qué cree” (nothing is difficult for God, everything is possible for those who believe) but I sometimes find myself singing it the wrong way round singing “todo es dificil para Dios, nada es posible..” (everything is difficult for God, nothing is possible), which is quite an unfortunate mistake to make!! (I do this with an English song too which goes “blow through the caverns of my soul” but often find myself singing tavern.. 😂)

– The other day I was trying to say “future”, (futuro), which is a fairly easy word to say but for some reason I just couldn’t get my mouth round it and said frutero (fruit seller)!

-My most recent mistake has been when I wanted to ask Noly how his neck was as it had been hurting. Instead of saying ‘how’s your neck?’ (como esta tu cuello?), I said ‘como esta tu cola?’. Cola is bum or tail…

– Marta was talking to me about knots a while ago (in relation to scarves). The Spanish word for knots is ‘nudos’. At this point my brain was like, hang on Nadz, you know a word that’s similar to that! Say it, say it and out I blurt ‘desnudo’, before remembering that means naked 😂

– It seems that I am completely incapable of saying “hinchado” which means swollen. I always say enchilada which is a hot spicy chili thing from Mexico. Either that or I say my own option of the word 😂 but I am literally incapable. Someone says it and then I repeat it as “henchadi” or something like that. Then they repeat it again and again I say the wrong one 😂

– I always get the fear when I try to say “qué gracioso” (how funny) as I get confused between gracioso and gaseosa. Gaseosa being fizzy drinks. Definitely don’t want to say “qué gaseosa” 😂

I’m sure there will be more to come of Nadz vs Spanish but that’s it for now. To end, here’s a picture of yours truly drinking some maté for the first time since I got here! Technically it was terere which is infinitely nicer in my opinion 😋