Found in translation

I took Spanish in junior high, high school and college, pero, mi español es muy mal. I try to speak with some of the employees at my building, in hopes of improving my language skills, however, I typically only manage a few short sentences.

 

Me: “Hola. Como estas?”

Her: “Muy bien. Y tu?”

Me: “Bien, bien. Gracias.”

Her: “Cómo está su hija?”

Me: “Bien.” Cómo se dice, ‘She is doing well. This is her last year in college and then she’ll be a teacher.’?”

 

At this point my coworker usually breaks into English and our conversation turns into a Gibraltar newspaper article (where Spanglish is very common), or she teaches me one word out of the twenty, “Ah, maestro.” “Sí, maestro,” I reply. The conversation usually ends with a “Hasta luego,” her walking away giggling, and me saying to myself, “Ah, chingao. I’ve got to practice my Spanish more often.”

 

The fact that I struggle with learning, retaining and effectively speaking a second language gives me a huge level of respect for people who are bilingual. Especially those who learn a second (or third or fourth) language later in life. What I’ve found in many of those cases is that lost in translation are the adjectives or verbs we often use to talk around that which we are really thinking. What is found in translation, is honest, sincere communication sans malicious intent. I see this most often when texting with Maverik Midget King, His first language is French and he just recently learned English.

 

He sent me a picture of a body builder and I asked if he wanted to look like him. “I want lost my fat belly,” he replied. “I’m still trying to lose my baby fat from 41 years ago,” I told him. “For girls I love. I hate skinny. Your a perfect body!! I love!” was his response. “You are lovely to me – thank you,” I replied. “I love chobby,” was his next text to me. “Agreed. I’ll eat more cookies,” I text back. Perfect = chubby. If anyone else had said this to me, especially someone who spoke English as their primary language, I would think they were a douche (French word – I’m trying to learn that language too). Since he said it, as someone who is trying to learn a second language, I find the translation to be sweet, honest, and endearing – mon lapin doux, je suis heureux de vous trouver.

 

 

 

2,717 thoughts on “Found in translation”

  4. Howdy! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after
    checking through some of the post I realized it’s new
    to me. Anyways, I’m definitely glad I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking
    back often!

  17. Need transportation? car delivery car transportation company services — from one car to large lots. Delivery to new owners, between cities. Safety, accuracy, licenses and experience over 10 years.

  18. Hola! I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now and
    finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out
    from Huffman Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the great work!

  21. Hey there, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues.
    When I look at your blog in Ie, it looks fine but
    when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.
    I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that,
    awesome blog!

  22. Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
    The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Opera.
    I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.

    The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Cheers

  24. Hi! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after going through some of the posts
    I realized it’s new to me. Regardless, I’m certainly pleased
    I came across it and I’ll be book-marking
    it and checking back frequently!

  32. I believe everything posted made a lot of sense.

    But, think on this, what if you added a little information? I am not saying your information is not good, however suppose you added a headline that makes people want more?
    I mean Found in translation – GrigioGirl is kinda boring.
    You ought to look at Yahoo’s front page and note how they create
    post titles to get people to open the links. You might
    try adding a video or a pic or two to get readers interested about everything’ve got to say.
    In my opinion, it could bring your posts a little bit more interesting.

  33. Good day I am so excited I found your site, I really found you by error,
    while I was looking on Yahoo for something else, Anyhow I am here
    now and would just like to say thanks a lot for
    a tremendous post and a all round entertaining blog (I
    also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to browse it all at the moment but I have bookmarked
    it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to
    read more, Please do keep up the superb job.

  37. Hello! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering which
    blog platform are you using for this website? I’m getting
    sick and tired of WordPress because I’ve had problems with hackers and I’m looking at alternatives for
    another platform. I would be awesome if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.

  40. Hey, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues.

    When I look at your blog in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in Internet
    Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!

    Other then that, wonderful blog!

  41. Защитные кейсы https://plastcase.ru в Санкт-Петербурге — надежная защита оборудования от влаги, пыли и ударов. Большой выбор размеров и форматов, ударопрочные материалы, индивидуальный подбор.

  42. You are so cool! I don’t think I’ve read through something like that before.
    So nice to discover someone with a few unique thoughts on this issue.
    Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This website
    is one thing that is required on the web, someone with a bit of originality!

  44. Защитные кейсы https://plastcase.ru/ в Санкт-Петербурге — надежная защита оборудования от влаги, пыли и ударов. Большой выбор размеров и форматов, ударопрочные материалы, индивидуальный подбор.

  46. Защитные кейсы https://plastcase.ru/ в Санкт-Петербурге — надежная защита оборудования от влаги, пыли и ударов. Большой выбор размеров и форматов, ударопрочные материалы, индивидуальный подбор.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *