By Alanna Nunez
1. When your phone autocorrects something from Spanish to English when you need Spanish (or vice versa). Yes, iPhone, when I typed "Oye, dude, como te vas?" of course what I meant to say was, "Our wrong que tally coming estate?" Because that makes total sense.
2. When you start out speaking in one language and don't even realize that you've switched to another halfway through. I wondered why everyone was giving me such weird looks.
3. When you're listening to the radio or someone says something to you and you can understand the meaning, but it takes you a couple of minutes to actually figure out what language is being spoken. It's like, what dey sed?
4. When you think of a really funny joke in one language and can't figure out how to translate the humor to your non-Spanish or English-speaking friends or family. But I swear, it was really funny!
5. Same with romantic lyrics or poems or sayings. And idioms! Please don't ask me how to say,"You can't put lipstick on a pig" in Spanish. I don't even know what it means when it's used in English.
6. And to that end, when you have the best comeback when you're fighting with someone, but it's in Spanish or English, and doesn't translate. I'm just saying, if we were having this fight in Spanish, I would have won, hands down.
7. Basically, things just do not translate. There's no English translation for words and phrases like, "sobremesa," "estrenar," "madrugada," or even"tener ganas." Even the phrase "Te quiero" is hard to translate, because it goes far beyond, "I care for you." It's that in-between place when you love someone but you're not quite at the "Te amo" level of love. But it can also be to express non-romantic love for people. You know?
8. Watching badly subtitled movies or speeches is simultaneously LOL funny and sad. The subtitles would have you believe that bad guy straightforwardly said, "Get out of here fool," BUT THEY'RE WRONG.
9. That moment you get so mad, nervous, scared, or excited that you freeze up and can't think or speak in either language. And then when your brain finally unsticks itself and starts working again, you're not really sure what's coming out of your mouth.
10. When you speak only one language for a long period of time and start forgetting basic vocab in your other language. "Yo tengo ... oh, come on, so I'm a little rusty! You know what I mean. Can we just go get lunch por fa?"
11. When you go to another country or region that speaks your language and you realize the slang is all different. #TBT to that time I was introduced to my sister's host mom while she was studying abroad in Spain and had to hide my laughter at the fact that her name was Concha, which, while a lovely nickname for Concepción in Spain, is actually slang for vagina in Chile. Sorry, Concha! You were lovely. I swear.
12. That moment when you read something and it makes literally zero sense. Until you realize that you weren't reading it in the language in which it was written but instead putting it through the translator in your head and reading it in your other language.
13. When you're in a group of people, and some of them only speak Spanish and others only speak English, and you have to translate for everyone. It's like playing Telephone and telling one story takes twice as long as it normally would, so get comfortable, because we're going to be here a while.
14. When you need a word, but you can only think of it in Spanish and can't think of its English counterpart (or vice versa). Hope y'all like charades, because we're going to be playing a lot of it in the future as I try to act out the word I'm looking for and hope you can understand me.
15. This. Because even though you may confuse people sometimes (and "really", even yourself) when your brain and your mouth don't cooperate, you know what you're trying to say.
15. This.
