One of our goals before setting off for Latin America was to
improve our Spanish skills. Although our Spanish is much better than it was
before we left, we are, by no stretch of the imagination, fluent. In fact, we
can manage to start a conversation, and have mastered this, which results in the Spanish
speaking person being fooled into thinking that we can converse and starts talking
very fast, about what, we still don’t know.
We have tried and by trying, have
managed to say some pretty ridiculous things. We wanted to share some of those. These are a few that we can remember- I’m sure there were others.
Blooper 1
As we are arriving in Mazatlan, Dan calls the port captain
and wants to check in “el bano Ustupu”. After a fairly long pause, the Port
captain responds in English. Dan asked to check in the bathtub Ustupu (bano
means bathtub or bathroom) which obviously does not make sense.
Blooper 2
After eating a delicious order of ceviche, Sylvie shouts
enthusiastically to the waitress “Nice to meet you!” instead of telling her it
was delicious…
Blooper 3
We were in a taxi and Dan wanted to tell the driver that he
was not rich so he shouted out “I am not delicious!”. The taxi driver had a
great laugh.
Blooper 4
The following is a
short conversation that has been translated. Dan was talking to a Park Ranger
at Isla del Coco and wanted to ask whether we could take a few coconuts with
us.
Dan “Hello. You have many
coconuts on the land. I would like for us”
Park Ranger “uh. Ok. How many?”
Dan: “uhhhhh…4?”
Park Ranger: “ok”
Dan: “Much thanks!”