Embarrassing Moments While Learning Spanish

Humiliating Moments While Learning Spanish Committing errors goes with the job of learning an unknown dialect. Most slip-ups are kind, however when you commit those errors in an alternate nation or culture, some of them can be out and out humiliating. A gathering that used to be a piece of this site highlighted a conversation on humiliating minutes in learning the language. Here are a couple of the reactions. Arbolito: While living in Madrid while getting my Masters certificate, I went to the mercado, explicitly to where they sold poultry. I considerately requested two pechos. I had discovered that pechos was the word for bosom. Much to my dismay that there was an alternate word for chicken bosoms, pechuga. So there I was, approaching the man for 2 human bosoms! What's more, I likewise utilized the word coger in Argentina, despite the fact that I have known everlastingly that it is a profanity there. However, in different spots, it is only a typical method to state to take. So I asked somebody where I could coger el autobã ºs! Apodemus: On a Spanish course in Salamanca I met a Belgian young lady. I solicited her, in Spanish obviously, regardless of whether she communicated in Dutch or French. Her reaction was: En la oficina, hablo holandã ©s, pero en la cama hablo francã ©s. Abruptly the entire room was taking a gander at her, she went splendid red and faltered En la casa, dije en la casa!! Rocer: In Chile, cabrito little youngster, however in Peru, cabrito gay (or is it the opposite way around?) A companion of mine from the U.S. was in Chile, and he took in the word cabrito. Individuals called him cabrito on the grounds that he was youthful. He loved the word cabrito, so he called himself cabrito. At that point he made a trip to Peru, and a few people asked him for what good reason he didnt get hitched with a Peruvian young lady, he said Es que yo soy muy cabrito (he needed to state indeed Im extremely youthful, and he wound up saying indeed Im gay). Individuals just took a gander at him extremely bizarre, and snickered at him. Later on, he came back to Chile, where individuals giggled like insane when he disclosed to them his story. Hermanito: Lo siguiente no me pasã ³ a mã ­ sino an una amiga mã ­a, quien apenas comenzaba an aprender espaã ±ol. Esta entro an una tiendita mexicana y le preguntã ³ al dueã ±o si tenã ­a huevos, sin saber el sentido alternativo de la palabra. (The word huevos, which means eggs, is likewise a slang term for balls.) El Tejano: In Mexico, women never request eggs - they generally state blancos. Glenda: I have three stories. The first is from a companion here in San Miguel, who in the wake of eating a delightful supper, needed to commend the cook. She stated, Compliments to the cocino. Cocino implies a fat pig. She ought to have said praises to the cocinero. At that point, there is this story, from our neighborhood paper. A modestly experienced horsewoman comes to Mexico and is taking riding exercises from a Mexican male instructor. He doesnt acknowledge how experienced she is, so he needs all her the pony roped. She is baffled however consents and keeps a rope on the pony all through her exercise. They are talking in Spanish about the following days exercise, making courses of action, and she completes the discussion by saying, Sã ­, est bien ... pero maã ±ana, sin ropa. Lastly, from my own understanding. A neighborhood server in an eatery we like is additionally a craftsman. My significant other and I saw his work showed in the eatery and chose to get it. He was excited, and consequently offered to pay for the cut of cake we had requested for dessert - a sweet signal. Toward the finish of the supper, I stated, Gracias por la pastilla (the pill) rather than el pastel (the cake). I am certain that there have been a lot all the more humiliating minutes which I have caused ... be that as it may, most likely individuals here were so respectful I never at any point knew. El Tejano: Twenty odd years prior, I was in a shoe store in Mexico purchasing another pair of shoes. My Spanish was a great deal more terrible than it is currently and I couldnt recollect the word for size. So I turned size upward in my weakling word reference (consistently a dangerous practice) and the main section was tamaã ±o. So I told the youngster that my tamaã ±o was 9. She was extremely youthful and I was around 50, and I heard her mumble, scarcely perceptibly faintly, rabo verde. In the event that you dont get it, Ill leave the subtleties to another person, in any case youll be calling me rabo verde as well. Heres another: Im a resigned painting contractual worker from Houston and we had a major business work down in the Rio Grande Valley, which is unclear from Mexico itself. A gringo painter on our group needed to ask an appealing chica who worked at the Wal-Mart in Carrizo Springs to eat with him. We advised him to state, Seã ±orita, es posible que quisieras comer conmigo? Be that as it may, he got befuddled and subbed cojer for comer. The outcomes were unsurprising! Spanish Expert:Â One that rings a bell happened numerous years back during an excursion to Mexico when I expected to purchase a razor. Not knowing the word for razor, I went in a little store and requested algo para aceitar and got just abnormal looks. Communication via gestures proved to be useful, and Im sure that they at that point made sense of the word I implied. I had utilized the action word for to oil (aceitar) rather than the action word for to shave (afeitar). I didnt acknowledge what I had said until later that night. I made a trip to Peru a couple of years prior with a then-young child, and he needed to have a go at utilizing his insignificant Spanish at an open air advertise. He chose to purchase an alpaca cover and asked the amount it cost - quince soles was the appropriate response, about $5 U.S. at that point. He felt that was a decent arrangement, and expeditiously pulled cincuenta soles (about $18) from his wallet. He would have paid it in the event that I hadnt got his mix-up. So as to spare himself the humiliation of giving the seller an excessive amount of cash, he chose the cost was one he couldnt leave behind and instantly chose to purchase two. Donna B: We had prepared a turkey supper for a Mexican international student, and my child, who was learning Spanish, disclosed to him we were having polvo for supper rather than pavo. Our student from abroad gave him a sickened look and would not descend for supper. We later acknowledged he had told the student from abroad we were having dust for supper rather than turkey for supper. TML: The first occasion when I went to Madrid I was approached to go to the supermercado and get some chicken (pollo). All things considered, I got a little silenced and as opposed to approaching the man for pollo, I requested a particular piece of his life systems. Discussion about a humiliating second! He at long last made sense of what I was requesting and I returned home with some genuine chicken parts! The family I was remaining with practically wet their jeans snickering. I have since been returned to Madrid multiple times and have taken in a significant exercise ... We are simply the ones who put the weight on ourselves. Each individual I met truly needed me to succeed, and they were amazingly useful. They didnt attempt to cause me to feel moronic - yet were progressively moved by my longing to speak with them - even in lieu of my syntactic blunders. Exercises learned: If you are hesitant to commit errors, you won't learn. A long time not far off you will have some clever and frequently awesome recollections of individuals you met and how you each helped each other out. Lily Su: I was looking into the word dulce in my amazing word reference (which records heaps of approaches to utilize words and expressions) needing to check whether it was utilized to make statements like, gracious thank you, that was sweet of you, and so on., and not simply that you favored sweet treats, for instance. I was perusing along and stumbled into the word boniato (yam). I should not have been perusing cautiously in light of the fact that I by one way or another got the possibility that you could consider somebody a boniato as an affectionate nickname (perhaps like we call somebody darling). So I circumvented saying, hola, mi boniato to a considerable lot of my Spanish companions, just one of which at last remedied me. It despite everything makes all of us laugh hysterically when we recollect that! Likewise caught wind of an American minister who remarked at the Spanish mass that he adored los calzones bonitos (calzones is underwear) when he intended to state las canciones bonitas (the delightful melodies)! Patty: I was looking for food supplies in Los Angeles with a Spanish-talking companion, and in endeavor to assist her with picking her squeezed orange I asked her (in Spanish) in the event that she needed the one with mash or without. It ended up being one of those events that speculating the word by including an o toward the end didnt work. Pulpo implies octopus. Luckily, I was close enough; the word is pulpa, so she had the option to think about what I implied. AuPhinger: The expression y pico was normally used to mean and a bit, or a tad, as in ochenta pesos y pico for a little more than eighty pesos. One of the colleagues in my dads office moved to, on the off chance that I recollect accurately, Chile. He utilized the expression - for a brief timeframe! Until part of the gang in the workplace pulled him aside and educated him that there, y pico implied a smidgen of just a single thing! Liza Joy: Once in a college night class I was instructing, an as of late separated from moderately aged understudy chose to utilize the Spanish she learned in my group out traveling to Mexico. She needed to escape from the vacationer course thus went to an eatery where nobody seemed to communicate in English. She figured out how to arrange a delectable dinner, yet when it came time to request the bill, everything she could consider to state was how a lot, which she interpreted truly as como mucho which implies I eat a great deal, rather than the right cunto. This fairly stout woman disclosed to me that she continued pointing at her dish and saying como mucho to the server, who looked humiliated and continued saying, No, seã ±ora, usted no come mucho. At last, she assumed out her acknowledgment card, and he out of nowhere comprehended. She didnt comprehend what the issue was until she returned to class after Easter break. Moral: Learn your inquiry words! Russell: This didnt really transpire, yet a partner of mine disclosed to me this story