Hablo Americano

I’ve started to have an “intercambio” with my Spanish texting buddies – I help them with their English, and they help me with my Spanish. When we text, I type only in Spanish, and they respond in English. We also made the agreement that we would correct each other, which is crucial. It’s actually been helping my Spanish a ton.

Though we are all more or less fluent, we still have slip ups all the time. I am sure my Spanish is absolute comedy to them, but I have definitely gotten a few laughs out of some of his attempts at English.  Here are a few excerpts from our conversations:

• When trying to refer to walking downhill, “Walk like it’s downstairs.”
• “In my country, they are gypsies so they charge you for extra KitKat in your McFlurry.”
• “My organism has adapted to not needing much sleep.”
• “I’ll send you my localization so you can find the bar.”
• “Look I’m watching Gossip Girl and wow, I cannot explain how interesting it is being. You should watch it! It is being really, really good.”
• “If the bar is full, start doing the line.”
• “Don’t become angry because sometimes I have no idea what I’m saying.”

It's pretty cool that I can help teach them colloquial English phrases, like "hang out" and "shut up." In return, they are teaching me a lot about how to converse with my peers en español.