Espanglish is espectacular

Who doesn't love Spanglish? There's nothing better than a conversation between people who both speak Spanish & English fluently (or close to it) because you can pick and choose the best and most convenient words from each language - words like "cozy" or "upset" that don't have perfect translations in Spanish, or like "regalar" or "tener ganas" that lack a perfect equivalent in English.

Exstrangers = strangers + extranjeros
What pass? = awful direct translation of ¿Que pasa?*
*Popularized by Moria Casán on Bailando por un sueño (the Argentine version of Dancing with the Stars)
Milagrous = milagroso/a + miraculous
It has sense = tener sentido + it makes sense
Living = living room
Ejemple = ejemplo + example
Fashion = in fashion/fashionable (Ex. Starbucks is so popular because it's fashion here.)

9 months in Argentina and my Spanish is still not fluent, my English is increasingly stranger and less coherent every day. But my Spanglish is just perfect. So much so that it interferes with my teaching. I think teachers who don't speak Spanish are probably better teachers in some ways, because if their students say something incomprehensible, they will simply not understand. Whereas I now automatically translate it into Spanish and back into English in my head and often don't even realize I've done it or that what the student said was wrong. When 90% of the conversations you have in English are with non-native speakers, you get so accustomed to certain mistakes that they stop sounding odd.

The most common mistakes are little things like saying "career" instead of degree, translating directly from "carrera," or getting confused by other false cognates like support & soportar, sensible & sensible, assist & asistir, etc., which sound alike but have completely different meanings. There are some pretty funny ones, like molestarse, which means "to bother" in Spanish, and translates to sentences like "I don't mean to molest you, but..." or the confusion between earn and win, which are the same word in Spanish, so you hear things like, "He wins 15 pesos every hour."

I don't have so many good examples of the same thing happening with English speakers trying to speak Spanish... Except one beloved incident that occured with W while we were living in Palermo last year. We went to a restaurant and I ordered steak & mashed potatoes, and he ordered a milanesa with french fries. The waiter explained that that particular dish was actually meant for two people. W then gestured at me and said something like, "Bueno, lo mismo," as in, Okay, I'll have what she's having in that case. And then added, "Y con papas fritas." Doubtless, when our orders came, I got my steak and W got the Milanesa and french fries for two, with an extra side of french fries. Try, if you can, to imagine the hysterical laughter, to the point of tears, that followed, thinking about what the waiter must have thought. Like, Oh really? That dish is for two? Perfect. Could I have some extra french fries with that?

Anyway. I love Spanglish. On another note, I also love winter in Bs As if for no other reason than the vendors on the street selling hot sugared almonds - I've never tried them but it has to be the best smell in the entire world.

xoxo