Getting the lingo

One of the ideas we had for our trip was to try to learn a bit of Spanish, and , true to our word, we had a weeks worth of lessons in Guatemala which were very good.

Since then, we haven't become fluent (which shouldn't come as any kind of suprise at all) but we do think we're a little better than we were before.

There are a number of reasons for this: some people seem to prefer speaking to us in English than suffering our well intentioned efforts to murder their language; we have stayed in some places that were 'international' (i.e. English speaking); we are finding the different pronounciation (e.g. between BsAs and Guatemala) quite a challenge; we are of an age which is past its sell by date for language learning and, quite frankly, it's quite hard.

Having said that, we feel we are quite fluent in restaurant-ese. It has been known for us to stumble through a whole order process (with commendably little pointing at the menu, I may add) and then find out that the waiter comes back and has a chat with us in near-perfect English about our travel plans etc.

Another source of amusement is the near similarity between English and Spanish that suddenly pop up:

The Spanish for "Predictive Text" (according to T's phone documentation), is "Texto Predictivo", and our favorite from today was the taxi driver who was lamenting the "Mucho Traffico" of BsAs.

Of course, this lulls one into a false sense of security and makes for quite and embarassing time at the ice cream counter, whilst I ask for "Chocolate Mousse" (choc-o-lar-tay moo-s) about 5 times before the chap behind the counter realises I mean choc-o-lar-tay mow-s. "Mousse", spelt the same as English - pronounced like a rodent - who'd have thought it?

However, our best moment so far; a real "Scorchio!" for those who get the reference; was when we were sitting in the back of a cab in Panama City, the local Spanish radio advert went "chile con carne; guacamole; tortilla" - we just looked at each other and giggled.