Spanish Language

"I can't help but wonder what Pedro and Maria from my high school Spanish text books are up to these days. Still studying for tests and planning to get together with friends, probably."


- Ruminations.com




More than one Spanish speaker who learned English has told me that English is a very ‘rich’ language. What they mean is that English has very specific words that are used to describe very specific things. Therefore, it is easier to express yourself more accurately in English. My best example of this is that in Spanish, the word ‘aborto’ has two meanings. It means abortion, but it also means miscarriage, two words that are VERY different. I didn’t know this. I always thought that aborto only meant abortion. This confusion led to the following conversation.

Darling (translated to English): “Yeah my friend just called me to tell me that she had another ‘aborto.’

Jesse: “Wow really?"

Darling: “Yeah she has had 5 ‘abortos’ in the past 9 months.”

Jesse: “What?!?! Why doesn’t she use birth control or make her boyfriend use a condom.”

Darling (in English): “Jesse, aborto also means miscarriage.”

Jesse: “Oh….”



I always get a kick out of English-Spanish translations. For example, in Spain, marshmallows are referred to as Nubes de Azúcar (Sugar Clouds). Roller Coasters are called Montañas Rusas (Russian Mountains) and bumper cars are called carros locos (Crazy Cars).

However, my favorite translation is the expression for ‘soul-mate’. One of the popular words for soul mate is ‘Media Naranja.’ So if you did a very literal translation from Spanish to English, you would end up with something like this:
“I really love this girl. I think that I’ve finally found my half-orange.”


The Physical Representation of True Love in Spanish Speaking Countries



I really don’t get offended by anything, but the one thing that never ceases to offend me is when people insist on speaking to me in English when I’m in a foreign country. Sometimes I’ll start speaking with someone in Spanish and they’ll respond to me in English. (How do they know I’m not Russian or German??) I always interpret it as them telling me “Look, it’s really cute that you’re trying to speak Spanish, but I speak English better than you speak Spanish so that’s what we’re gonna speak.”

However, I realized that this anger was unfounded when I was in Paris one night, and not one person approached me speaking English. My reaction to this was much different than it is when someone speaks English to me in Spain. In France, my thought was more along the lines of “Whoa Whoa Whoa. Enough of this French Bullshit. Take a look at me. I’m the whitest guy ever. What would ever make you think that I speak French? Now please speak to me in American!”



There is a slip that I fill out every week in the hotel in Spain to have my laundry done. The slip has all of the articles of clothing on it and you mark how many of each you need to be cleaned. This list is written in Spanish and English and the thing that makes me laugh is that Calzoncillos (Underwear) is always translated as draws. I’ve only ever heard underwear referred to as ‘draws’ by one person. So if the Fresh Prince of Bel-air needs to have his underwear dry cleaned in Spain, he should have no problem with the translation.


The Fresh Prince always has clean draws in Spain.



In my travels, one thing I have learned is that mechanics/construction workers are the dirtiest bastards in the world, independent of country. This is never more evident than while using the on-site Port-o-Potty. At one site in Illinois, I remember specifically working with about 30 people, 29 guys, and 1 semi-attractive blonde female. I say semi-attractive, because that’s what she was. Of course, the hyenas at the construction site probably viewed her as the blonde Kim Kardashian due to the obvious lack of females at this plant. I realized this after going into the disgusting Port-O-Potty (Seriously, is there anything more disgusting in this world than a construction site Port-O-Potty?) and reading all of the various comments on the wall directed at this girl, which were all some vulgar way of saying “I would like to have sex with her.” Accompanied by this writing was the beautifully drawn picture of this girl, completely naked , legs spread open, wearing nothing but a hard hat.

I thought at first that maybe the defacing of Port-O-Potty’s was an American thing, but quickly came to realize that it is pretty universal. Here in Spain, the outside of the Port-O-Potty was spray painted in huge green letters to say “Makina del Tiempo” (Time Machine), which I thought was pretty funny. Then, when I walked inside of this thing, Dear Lord… I have been studying Spanish for 5 years but the vulgarity that was written on the wall was mostly beyond my comprehension. I guess that makes sense. In Spanish classes we covered the basics: family members, food, animals, asking for directions. Unfortunately we never made it through the whole book to Chapter 43: Disgusting Shit That You’ll Find Written in Construction Site Port-o-Potty’s. Either way, there is one thing written on there that I have been trying to decipher for the past 5 weeks. I’m not 100% sure of what it says, but my best translation would be: “If your fingers are paint brushes, and your hands are paint, go and paint the inside of your mother’s cunt without painting the walls.” Well then…

The other notable thing about the bathroom wall ‘literature’ is that no construction worker can spell for shit. I read one thing that said: Ay k tener webos pa caga aki (You need some balls to take a shit here). It irritated me that this was written in such poor Spanish… but later it irritated more when I realized that I was standing in a disgusting port-o-potty, long after done peeing, in order to read everything and critique the grammar and spelling.



As anyone who has been to Spain knows, they love eating ham. In fact, they have a million butcher shops on the street with gigantic legs of ham hanging in the windows. The best way to visualize them would be to think of a club that Fred Flintstone would use, but made of meat. Anyway, this meat is called Jamon Iberico and is very popular here in Spain. This happened to be the topic of one of the phone conversations between my coworker JR and I.

JR (knowing that I was spending Thanksgiving in Spain): “Oh I forgot to tell you how awesome Thanksgiving was. Great turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn. It was unbelievable.”

Jesse: “Asshole.”

JR: “Oh by the way, Stefan wants to know if you will bring him back some Jamon Iberico.”

Jesse: “Yeah no problem. Tell him that I’ll bring it into the office on Monday, use it to beat the shit out of you, and then give it to him.”


If this were Clue, the correct answer would be “Mr. Wells, in the office, with the Jamón Iberico.”



Spanish people just have cooler names than us. I used to have a teacher in Spain whose name was Maria del Mar (Maria from the Sea). Of course, that sounds more like the name of a mythical princess from ancient times, not a middle-aged woman teaching business Spanish at Alcala de Henares.



I work with a guy here whose name is Jesus Maria. The official award winner for ‘Person with the most biblical name ever’. Well he was the winner for 2 days until I met a girl whose name was Maria Jesus.



In the real touristy parts of Spain, I would pop into the stores and look around for souvenirs. In just about all of the stores, they would have shirts with really dirty things written in English. One shirt said “My Way of Life” written at the top. And then, accompanied by crude stick figure drawings, it said “Eating, Fucking, Getting Fucked Up.” I guess there wasn’t enough room on the shirt to add “Enjoying a Beautiful Sunset” and “Curling up with a Good Book”
Another shirt that I saw in Barcelona actually made me laugh out loud because it was so ridiculous. It was a black shirt, and in huge white print, all it said was “SUCK MY DICK!” Nothing subtle about that…



Upon returning to my apartment on December 26th, I noticed that one of the gifts that my roommate, Tim, got for Christmas was the book “Spanish for Dummies”, a suitable gift seeing as to how he is married to a girl from Colombia. This is the conversation that followed:

Jesse: “Oh Look at that. You got ‘Spanish for Dummies’. You gonna start studying Spanish soon then?”

Tim: “Yeah, but I’m not quite ready to tackle this book. I wish they would have bought me ‘Spanish for Fucking Morons’”



One day in Spain, I was repairing a piece of a equipment at a workshop with my co-worker Juan Carlos and we realized that we didn’t have the correct tools for the job. This is the subsequent conversation and translation:

Jesse: “Oye, Juan Carlos, nos falta una llave allen para desarmar esto. Puedes preguntarles a esos tios si pueden prestarnosla?”
Jesse: “Hey Juan Carlos, we need an allen wrench to take this apart. Will you ask these guys if they will lend us one?”

The owner of the workshop lent us an allen wrench and we kept working until we realized that we needed an American size wrench….

Jesse: “Este tornillo no es métrico. Nos falta una llave americana de 9/16. Puedes pedirle a ese hombre si puede prestarnosla??”
Jesse: “This isn’t a metric screw. We need a 9/16” wrench. Can you ask that guy to lend us one?”

Juan Carlos: “Oye tio, me da verguenza pedirle estas herramientas. Primero, necesitamos una llave allen, despues una llave americana, después un destornillador, después una buena tia para follar.”
Juan Carlos: “Man, I don’t like asking these guys for all of their tools. First, they lend us an allen wrench, then they lend us an american wrench, then they lend us a screwdriver. Next we’re gonna be asking this guy if he can lend us a hot chick to fuck.”



This same co-worker, Juan Carlos, and I pretty much only speak Spanish, but he swears a lot in English because he sees how much it makes me laugh. What he doesn’t know is that I’m laughing because he tries to use these vulgar expressions, but he invariably screws it up a little bit and ends up completely changing the meaning and sounding like a pissed-off Borat. Here are two verbatim quotes:

Juan Carlos (after being irritated by an e-mail he received by my co-worker Mike): “You tell Michael that I said FUCK YOU! And tell him that when I see him, I’m going to stick my finger in his ass!!!”

Juan Carlos: “When you call Michael, tell him that I’m going to kick his ass! And then… I’m going to suck his dick!”

Let’s just say that he’s not quite ready to get into a heated verbal battle in English…

* Originally written January 2011