ME: (fumbling through order) Hola! Un…cafe latte…sin…azúcar, por favor?
BARISTA: Uh-huh. And what size?
ME: (internally) I put up with that goddamn green owl for weeks…
BARISTA: Uh-huh. And what size?
ME: (internally) I put up with that goddamn green owl for weeks…
Comments
Costa Ricans are just accommodating as hell though.
Next time, try one of these:
Podría ponerme un café con leche, por favor?
Por favor, podría ponerme un café con leche?
Podría, por favor, ponerme un café con leche?
(sugar's in a separate sachet, up to you if you wanna add it or not)
(alright, I thought you asked for it "the Starbucks way" and they caught you)
¿Te puedo preguntar en qué ciudad estabas?
(can I ask you which city you were in?)
*Here’s a cheeky little note to flex on your sis-in-law at Christmas dinner: "Guad" comes from the word "Oued", which means river in Arab. The Spanish town was originally called Oued Al J'ra, meaning "river of stones". 😉
This is a survival skill for me. Coffee procurement in multiple languages.
You can hand gesture just about anything else.
Epiphany!! I thought. Finally I can understand Spanish!!
Then, I realised, she was speaking schoolgirl French
My personal favorite story about this was my Latino stepdad going to a Mexican market with my mom. The man spoke fluent Spanish, but the staff looked at him and my mom and addressed him in English LMAO.
Now I live in Australia and people think I'm French … accent changed again.
It does make me wonder about echolalia and SPD though.
Duo is 100% enshitified. They just want you to keep paying for max. Their goal is dopamine, not language learning.
Anki is a flashcard app that lets you download community-created flashcard packs.It also supports audio and images.
Cards are also algorithmically sorted by difficulty.
I've been using the Japanese 2k-6k deck for about a year now. あのソフトはすごい！( ^ω^ )
I've learnt first hand that translating english construction into any other language gives you lots of blank looks and confusion....
Duo’s ‘gamification’ makes it more addictive.
But Busuu is more structured. Each lesson is targeted to useful topics.
Note: Duo Max now has practice for “Listening”, “Speaking” and role play and conversations, which helps.
(I know just enough food German that, along with food English, I can make a guess at a menu.)
There was a Chilean visiting USA, the only thing he knew was to say “bread & butter”, one day he told a friend and he said but what about hot dogs? so the man goes to the shop and said “1 hot dog”, and the guy at the shop says “sure, with o without mustard”? Er… bread & butter
My husband is Dutch
And even he hates it.
And the gutteral 'g' sounds like you're coughing up a furball 😆😆😆
I speak Spanish, French, German, a little Italian and Korean...
but Dutch?
No. Just no.
I often heard " oh I can't speak English." Their English was better than my deutsch.
"I'm sorry I don't speak English." ::proceeds to articulate abstract thoughts with doctorate-level vocabulary::
and that’s probably about as far as it goes
i took 3 years of spanish in school but didn’t go for spanish 4 and it’s been a good bit so my knowledge is definitely starting to fade
#notacult #butiamanevangelist
https://youtu.be/E2wd0zuR5uQ?si=YZCqpGk7n5Vo9cd7
On the plus side, if the answer is yes, that means you achieved the closest to immortality there is.
¿Es esta la muerte térmica del universo?
No meaning change but ESA/ESTA (no tilde since the 2010 reform)
ESTE/ESTA (this), ESTOS/ESTAS (these)
ESE/ESA (that), ESOS/ESAS (those)
AQUEL/AQUELLA (that, farther away), AQUELLOS/AQUELLAS (those, farther away).
French was the default language in British schools.
I have a very little knowledge of written French.
My spoken French is mostly from watching subtitled TV shows, such as "Maigret".
I did visit the Netherlands once.
I have struggled more with language in Glasgow.
And I still had to look up the accents.
But with this like… witheringly pitiful look at me.
I was learning the language in the meantime but you've got to manage expectations.
I can so feel that!
But ya is just 'already' so that was an easy one.
Also it is easier to recognize grammar & words and then understand it then it is them to produce them from murky burrow-like depths of ones brain
(Given wombatitude I had to shift to different metaphor)
listening? My receptive language is exactly as you have described. 🤦🏽♀️
Barwhatevrino: I'm sorry sir we have Grande Moldy....
ME: Get over yourself and give me a medium coffee, you know what that is. Not the big one not the little one...
and don't get me started on McDonalds fry sizes med lg xlg WTF no small?
Speak French sooooo badly that they get mad and speak English to you.
(my francophone Belgian colleague had other problems - Belgian French and Québécois seem to be mutually incomprehensible)
Belgium and France are bordering countries, even though the French—they're just made that way—will always mock the Belgians for whatever reason, but I'd rather say "septante-quatre" (74 in Belgium and Switzerland) than "soixante-quatorze" (60+14 in France and Quebec).
Had to learn the hard way that my 1.5 year french streak didn't mean I could understand even the most basic statements from the locals.
Thank God the service industry folks all speak English, and that Google translate exists
Me parezco a ese comentario...
https://bsky.app/profile/russellengland.bsky.social/post/3l7csl5oeua2j
At a hotel desk somewhere in Germany:
Me: Guten abend. Haben zie ein einzelzimmer und ein doppelzimmer?
Concierge: Yeah, I got a single and a double.
Me: 🙄
Heck I'm assuming, dock move on MY part.
I also hate Duo the owl
I still play Duo every day, but since I cheat with crib notes, mi espanol no es muy bueno.
Pretty sure they were politely saying "We speak English".
If you want to stick with Spanish, a polite move would be to reply with: "grande", "mediano", or "pequeño".
(soltanto per te)
I looked forward every day to a coffee and a pastry and an opportunity to practice.
"Non, il faut *cracher* les pepites!"
I have a small vocab so far, so listening to Spanish I get one word out of 50.
baño, ¡pero no cerró la puerta!”.
I did and slunk off to my bar stool.
I won’t stop trying, though. Its respectful.
(Good on the ticket lady for making you practice.) 💛
It's a common enough mistake.
He has become very grumpy and unhelpful over the last couple of years.
(eso sí que es)
And 1300 and counting
Hola, amigo. Yo, también. Cuando me preguntan qué talla, señalo la cosa más grande disponible. 😉
🤙🏻🖖🏻
me: "hola, un cafe latte s'il vous-- OH, um, sorry--"
barista: "ah, non, non anglais, mais," (hopeful) "francais? petit francais?"
me: "OUI, PETIT PETIT FRANCAIS,"
I also remember once on a train in Amsterdam, overhearing three young men - by their accents an American, a Frenchman and a German - using Italian as their common language. I loved that.
I’m better at them when drunk, but much, much worse at having good enough judgment to make the kinds of decisions I generally need to make when I’m speaking another language.
Me: [answers in French automatically]
Me: “Shit, wrong language.”
(It helps when the cognates match up because then I can compose a sentence in French first & translate, but the false cognates & divergences mess me up.)
That’s my approach. Saves time and embarrassment.
Practically every Swede speaks English anyway, why am I putting up with this stupid fucking owl
siempre grande
if you say that you want to practice spanish we are going to be super happy to help
And the fact you guys always do that jajaja thing! 🥰😘😂
And the other characters too
i also always said “bonjour”
me: ich möchte 6 semmeln bitte
them, standing in front of the semmeln staring at me blankly bc i’m from the midatlantic and have the pin/pen vowel thing and my “e” was half a vowel off: 😑
Someone called Milan the "New York of Italy", and it wasn't a reference to the fashion industry...
I think most folks in other countries are willing to work with you if you at least /try/ (legitimately) to speak in their language.
I was hoping that he would correct my pronunciation but no. 🤷♂️