Tuesday, October 28, 2014

This is how you grow

Despite the fact that I've lived my whole life within 30 miles of where I was born, I've always been really interested in and curious about people from all over the world. I'm grateful to be an adult at this point in time, where the world is literally at your fingertips via the internet and people can share information instantly. Discovering blogs and blogging has been a real delight, as it gives me a chance to indulge my love of learning about everyday life in far flung places. I've also been working to learn Spanish this year, and in my clumsy attempts to practice speaking it I've met and gotten to know some really interesting people.


I love this.....

And speaking of meeting interesting people, and clumsy attempts at speaking Spanish.....

A nice older couple visit the bookstore where I work almost every evening to sip espressos and share a dessert. They're distinguished looking people, the owners of one of the nicer jewelry stores in the area, and originally from Colombia. The husband has a big, warm smile and is unfailingly friendly and courteous, so I finally got up the nerve to tell him I'm trying to learn Spanish. His response was "Wonderful! Don't be ashamed to practice or afraid of making mistakes. It's how you learn!" Which is true, and so we began practicing a little whenever he comes in. One subject I can usually do really well talking about in Spanish is my dogs, so I decided to tell him about Ginger and George. It was going fairly well at first, but I tend to get nervous and a bit tongue tied after awhile when a native speaker is listening. So after going on about how wild George is, and how much extra energy he has, I said, (or meant to say) "We walk our dogs every day." The man looked at me funny for a minute, and then started laughing. And I, totally clueless, kept saying "What? What did I say?" while he laughed and laughed.

Unfortunately for me, the verb for "we walk" and "we eat" sound similar. I had just told this nice gentleman that we eat our dogs everyday! Nice!

Yo no come mis perros!

2 comments:

  1. Unfortunately when a Frenchman says "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse", he means it.

    Timidity is the enemy of learning languages.... speak speak speak!

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  2. I smiled for the "we eat our dogs every day." A well placed photo afterward!

    I'm all over the place for friends. Many decades below and above me, fewer my exact age. One interesting spread: those who are 50+ are so concerned and disappointed in the young, where many who are in the 18-30 demo barely think about their elders beyond direct interaction.

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