Oh Spanish!

Anyone who has ever tried to learn a language before knows that task is fraught with challenges and that embarrassment is inevitable. Since I am of the opinion that if people are going to be laughing with me, it might as well be my friends, I thought I would share some of my more memorable blunders with you all.

Tengo/tienes/tenemos hambre.

This one apparently is my favorite because I get it wrong all the time. What I meant to say is usually I/you/we are hungry. What I end up saying is “I/you/we have man.” Great. Now we’re cannibals.

Montan cebollas.

I was talking to one of my professors and she asked me if we had horses on our farm. MN farming is a constant source of interest to Bolivians and I thought I was explaining things well until she said “oh, like little house on the prairie?” No. Not really. So then I tried to explain the difference between farmers and ranchers and instead of saying ranchers ride horses, I said ranchers ride onions.

Fumo parros.

This was one of the exercises I was working on in class. Really, I have no excuse for getting this wrong, I was reading it verbatim from the page in front of my. But apparently my mind was somewhere else, because instead of saying “I smoke cigars”, I said “I smoke dogs.” (Neither of which is true, by the way).