Spanish Bloopers

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!”