We often make mistakes in Spanish. Some are funnier than others, so we thought we should share some of the better ones.
TSP can’t hear the difference between sesenta (sixty) and setenta (seventy). This is especially troublesome if your phone number has 6461 in it.
JTP cannot distinguish between a few different words. Pegar (to hit) and pagar (to pay) get confused a lot. One day when he tried to ask the maid if TSP had paid her yet he said, “¿TSP ya le pego?” (Has TPS hit you yet?). The other troublesome pair is “acostarse” (to lie down) and secuestar (to kidnap). This confuses people a lot.
With kids learning two languages, cognates can be difficult. The word “molestar” (to bother) came up once. AJP was once being bothered by BLP so he screamed at her, “STOP MOLESTING ME!!!” We just laughed and didn’t explain.
The best is trying to convert Spain-Spanish to Colombia-Spanish. Words like “computer”, “pea” and “car” are different. The Spanish in Spain is also a lot less formal. But the funniest is that some words in Spain are not swear words, but then again the Spaniards just generally swear a lot (turns out, we picked up some bad habits). One day AJP was bothering TSP, this caused her to say to the maid, “Le voy a romper el cul*”. In Spain this means (basically), “I’m going to kick his butt”. Turns out that in Colombia it means, “I’m going to kick his a**”. The maid was in shock and could just get out, “that’s very strong ma’am.”
That said, English can be difficult as well. Colombian employees in JTP’s office avoid the words “sheet”, “focus” and “beach”.
1 comment:
Since I learned Spanish in Central America, it was an eye-opener to move to Spain. I especially remember learning that in Spain you can "coger" (catch) the bus. In most of Latin America, that means something incredibly offensive. I remember thinking, "I can say what??!!!"
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