Language Barriers

Since I've been here I've made about the three most embarrassing mistakes in spanish that anyone in my study abroad program has ever made. Here goes.

1) I was sitting at the table, eating an early dinner by myself (since I had work) and skyping with my family. It had only been about 3 weeks, but I was already very close with my host family. I ask my abuela if there is fish in the meal she made and she says no. She starts listing off the ingredients and then says, oh wait, yes, sorry. There is fish in it. "Sabíalo! haha Mentirosa! una broma. Es delicioso. Gracias!" "I knew it! haha Liar! Just kidding, its delicious. Thanks so much."

Then I continued to skype with my family.

The next day my abuelo asked me if I remember Bill Clinton. Um... yes, of course. He lets me know that Bill Clinton was a "mentiroso"... and he was kicked out of office. I explained that I meant no offense, obviously it was a joke... but my abuela had been a bit offended! OH NO!!! I didn't even realize how bad the translation was until I went to see He's Just Not That Into You in spanish.. and they translated "Bullsh*t! You f***ing liar!" as "Mentiroso! Mentiroso!"

OOOOOOOPS.

2) I went on a few dates with a spanish guy. He was very affectionate in his texting but used a lot of slang, so it was hard to keep up. At night I wanted to end our text conversation with "Sweet dreams".. which in spanish is roughly translated as "May you dream with the little angels"or "Que tú sueñes con los anjelitos "..... what I said... was "Que te sueñes con los angelos".... Which means... "May you dream yourself with Los Angeles, CA."

3) The worst and greatest was certainly the explanation of my trip to Portugal to my Abuelo and Alejandra. I was so excited about my trip, which was in mid October and halfway through my trip that I was overconfident about my spanish. When you act like your fluent.. you make a lot of mistakes... but you learn quicker too. I will certainly never make this mistake again.

I said "Mis piernas están adoloridos porque el primero día me monté un toro mecanico y el segundo día, me monté un caballero." For those of you who speak spanish.. I might sound like I am telling my 75 year old grandfather a rather promiscuous story, and trying to give him a heart attack. For those of you who don't... here was the discrepancy.

I wanted to say "I'm so sore because the first day I rode a mechanical bull and the second I rode a horse!" The word for horse however, is caballo... easily confused with caballero.. which happens to mean gentleman. So you can understand why my host sisters jaw dropped and my Abuelo suddenly pretended to be hard of hearing when I preceded to tell them all about how I even rode the "gentleman" into the bar and everyone was cheering. Or about how riding the "gentleman" was the cherry on a perfect weekend.

OOPS!