First Take

In the spirit of Cinco de Mayo, I would like to share some personal experiences when the translation from Spanish to English didn’t quite work and resulted in hilarious situations.

• My family was dining at a Mexican restaurant and the waitress asked my brother (in English) if he wanted a corn or flour tortilla. He was trying to impress her with his Spanish skills and replied, “flor.” Problem is, “flor” is flower in Spanish, not flour (“harina”). What an idiota!

• In college one of my fellow students in Spanish class told the professor that she gets hungry at night. “Hambre” is the word for hungry. But she pronounced it as “hombre.” So instead of saying she gets hungry at night, she said she gets man at night! Poor thing was mortified when other students started giggling and she realized her mistake.

• A friend sent me a Christmas card one year and wrote “Feliz Ano Nuevo!” But, and this is a very important but, she didn’t put a tilde over the n, which changes the word from “year” to something way different! I’ll let you figure it out.