Spanish Blunderboard! Tricky Traps and how to avoid them.

Languages have always been a source of much mirth and humour amongst human beings. Wordplay and blunders in particular tickle our funny bone in that way that nothing else quite can. Ever since mum told me to mind her French after ramming into the back of someone else’s car or when my older brother Rupert told me to say ‘My dad’s a banker’ whilst putting two fingers in my mouth to stretch my lips and produce the sound ‘w’ insted of ‘b’, I’ve known something was up.

Which is why, now being in a country that is in many ways, very foreign, I am coming across second language language blunders and am reaping the benefits of this rich experience. In my experience there are 3 major ways in which you can go wonderfully wrong in Spanish:

1. Reflexive verbs – ever of the sexual nature, you must be sure you know who is doing what to who, and that it is normal in these weird Mediterranean countries for you to be doing something to yourself and it is not dirty. For example, on my Spanish exchange when I was 17, saying ‘Te importa si me duchas?’ to my exchange’s dad while I was in the bathroom is clearly wrong. He ran out in horror at the thought of committing this oddly sanitizing crime. No showering for me.

2. Incidental misconjunction of phonemes – A posh name for something that is, really quite simple. A German friend of mine with only 2 months’ Spanish under her belt made this mistake while innocently trying to explain that her rabbit (conejo)’s name was Shakespeare. Unfortunately she said the dreaded Spanish ‘ñ’ and said ‘coñejo’ instead, which resembles a more feline equivalent slang term in English representing women’s genitalia. The Spaniards cracked up on the instant of hearing this error, proving my point that there is something about language which just plain gets to us. No one cared much for hearing about her cat Shakespeare after that.

3 – Vocabulary. Memorise it how you will, you will always get it muddled up and confused at points. When I was trying to explain to my perennially naked German flatmate that I was really cold and had goosebumps (piel de gallinas), I instead told her I had ‘gilipollas’, the equivalent in English of saying ‘I have a massive dick on my arm.’ It has never been lived down in my flat and I will perpetually be faced with hoots of laughter in conjunction with pointing at arms and saying ‘gilipollas! gilipollas!’ Oh well, guess I had to be the strange foreigner at some point in my life.

Hope you have enjoyed my guide to not f*cking up language! Now go have fun and get your own examples!