When I said that for every one Mexican in Los Cabos, there are six Americans making asses of themselves, I hate to say it, but I maybe should have to include myself in that statistic. (And I'm not Mexican.) You see, I really thought I knew a lot more Spanish than I actually do. Also, we have this horrible pocket dictionary, which I believe is partly to blame for it all and... and... and...
Well, here is a list of things TLBP and I have actually said, in Spanish, when we (obviously) meant to be saying other things:
* "I would like the woman with potatoes, please."
* "And can I have a small alcoholic beverage for the little girl?"
* "I'll have the stone bench with green salsa."
Of course, we're learning, right? We're trying. That's important.
So embarrassing...
And another thing: some of the tourist shops have their prices in American dollars instead of pesos, so that I was going to buy something and I basically thought it was one twelfth what it really cost. I was surprised! I didn't want to pay twelve times the price I thought it was! So, naturally, when we went to another store- the liquor store, to find some of that exotic tequila- I asked if the prices were in dollars or pesos. I mean, the prices seemed too cheap, so I asked. This guy at the store yells at me, in English,
"Don't you know you are in a city in Mexico?!" He seemed to be partly kidding. I said,
"Lo se, pero..." And I couldn't think of how to say, "All those damn tourist shops mix up dollars and pesos and you don't know what's what!"
(Later, TLBP asked me, "Did you call that guy a dog?" No, no, pero is "but"... "Then how do you say 'dog'?" You roll the /r/ more, then it's dog. "Are you sure?" Yes, yes, I'm sure!)
But then, he must have felt bad, because he went out of his way to help us and just showered us with attention. Also, a girl at the shop scolded him. So it was okay. They just had cheap tequila. Great!
* All Mexico entries have weird dates.
"And can I have a small alcoholic beverage for the little girl?"
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky this happened in Mexico. In Scotland, they may have given you one!
When I went back to school, I studied Spanish. During my first year in the Sanish Lit program, I was still getting up to speed with the language. I was also cooking at a local upscale restaurant and as luck would have it, I was the only non-Hispanic employee who spoke Spanish. Sort of. Inside the front door was some tile which needed to be moped. Chef asked me to tell the Hispanic dishwasher to go mop the tile floor. I told him. He looked at me like I was crazy, so I said it again with more attitude and a "Chef says" added. I got annoyed thinking he didn't want a female line cook to tell him what to do. About fifteen minutes later I went into the dining room for another reason. The dishwasher was outside mopping the sidewalk and shaking his head. I still have a problem with Spanish prepositions to this day.
ReplyDeleteOh, and there was another restaurant where I worked before going back to school to study Spanish. Several of the Hispanic (these guys were all Mexican) told me that "Muchas Nalgas!" was another way to say thank you. Nalgas means buttocks. Unfortunately the chef let me go on saying "Much butt!" instead of than you for a week before he broke down and told me.
ReplyDeleteSo, Meg, you understand!
ReplyDeleteAnd Gina, in Scotland we stayed at a bed and breakfast where they asked if I wanted scotch whiskey on my oatmeal. At nine AM. I opted for the blood pudding, instead, and it was yummy! (Yes, I'm mostly vegetarian, but pig's blood with some lingonberries is really good.)