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Published: September 14th 2012
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Verbal Faux Pas are a part of learning any language. As you struggle to remember a word you replace that word in a sentance with anther word similar in spelling or sound because that is what your brain conjures up in order to fill the gap or the long silence.
I have been working very hard at speaking spanish but with each new day as I learn a different tense of a verb, it takes me 3 times as long to say one sentance as I have to question exactly what tense I performed the action in. I believe there are more than 8 tenses in Spanish for one verb. So you can imagine my conversations in the morning with my host family as I try and tell a story, dictionary in hand. My host brother Aries is most patient as i look for words and he usually sits down and watches TV and waits. He can watch at least 2 shows before I finish saying something simple like "I ate cheese last night at the panamanian restaurant". He just shakes his head and giggles.
Most of the students have made grave errors while conversing with locales. Here are
just a few:
My friend Kim told a local girl on the bus that "she loved her hair (cabello)", however what Kim had actually said was "I love your horse (cavaillo). The little girl tilted her head in confusion and just stared.
A girl names Carly was telling our story of our trip to see the whales to a large group of men at the bar. Carley is quite pretty and speaks spanish softly. The men were riveted by her story and her. When she got to the part about arriving at the dock of Boca Chica and telling the taxi boat driver that we were there to see the WHALES (baillenas -the double lls are pronounced like an H), what Carly actually said was "we were there to see the vaginas (vahinas- the v is pronounced like a B)" . Out of the corner of my eye I saw them men had moved in closer to Carly obviously for more details. I had not really heard what Carly has said so I asked her to repeat it and realizing her error quickly corrected her while trying to make hand gestures of no! no! no! The crowd went
wild. And were sorely disappointed they could not go to Boca Chicas to see vaginas.
One student told her host mom that she was 512 years old instead of 52 and when she realized her error said she was embarrased (embarazoso) by her mistake, but instead of embarrased said she was pregnant(embarazada).
Another student while trying to explain Reflexive Verbs to me i.e I wash myself, I get myself awake etc. He thought of a terrific example in english for me to understand better what a relexive verb is. And so he relayed it to me. What he sais was "I please MYSELF every day". WOW! Comence giggle fest here! YOu know valuable minutes are lost in class when one of us says the wrong thing. Our teacher could not understand why we were laughing nor could she understand his example and I was not going to be the one to explain it to her in Spanish.
My host mom asked me once what I did the night before without pants (sin pantas). I asked her to repeat the question and again heard the same thing. I kept insisting I had pants on, I had pants on.
She was actually asking me what I thought of last night (te penso)
A little kid called another class mate of mine ´a puta´ (which means bitch) but she thought she was being called a nice name and told the boy he was very sweet. She looked up the word later that night.
Another word for embarrassed in Pena, the word for freckle is Peca however the word for male genetalia is one letter off with an "e" at the end. Que Horror!
This awsome guy Stephen from England told a fictional story in class about marrying (casa) a girl he met on the internet however he said caza instead which is the word for HUNTED.
And the icing on the cake thus far was when Stephen told a true story of mountain biking and falling down and breaking his femur. He had to wait 1 hour for an ambulance.
Now mind you we had spent all morning learning the Spanish names for animals and spent most of the afternoon learning medicle terms. Genuinely concerned for his welfare after this horrific accident where his bone was protruding frm his leg, while pointing to my thigh with both hands seperated like I was holding a ball, I asked him in perfect Spanish if "he had a HUGE Ostritch" instead of course of ´a huge scar´. Stephen whips his head around and says in english with a sly smile "well now that is a bit personal isnt it?" Realizing my unintential sexual inuendo, I was reduced to tears of laughter for a solid 5 minutes.
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