When learning a language, there are certain things you're never going to learn by sitting in a classroom.
For example, It completely escaped my notice that I had gone the inaugural concert of OOO DOS last month. I mistakenly had thought the band I saw was called EWE TOO (U2).
On another occasion, when a friend invited me to dinner by e-mail, graciously writing in English instead of her native tongue:
Hi!!! How are you? Do you have plans for tonight? Im going with some friends to have ....mmmmhhh dinner (or is it lunch?) jiji around Gracia.
I responded by saying I'd be happy to have lunch at Jiji around Gracia. Right?
Wrong. You can imagine my embarrassment when I discovered that
Jiji = Hee Hee
or that
"Ah ha!" is actually "ajá."
I could go on forever.
These are the little things that I would not have learned any other way than by living and breathing in a Spanish-speaking country. And all I can say is Wuau, err..uh.. I mean Wow!
Credits
2 comments:
Those idioms and idiosyncracies of languages will get you every time!! Once, we were in Cancun, and mr. kenju left his eyeglasses in a taxi. We both speak a little Spanish, but not that much, so when we were trying to tell the taxi dispatcher what we lost, we inadvertently told him "a glass eye". I think there as a lot of laughter at the taxi office that day.
Love it...and you are learning while still maintaining a sense of humor. Even better.
I LOVE Barcelona. So envious of you.
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