Conversations at Casa López
There is usually at least one funny conversation in our household each day. I often share these conversations with friends and family on my Facebook page, but I decided to share the fun with all of you. Here are a few from the past few months.
Carlos: Opossum is same as a “tacuazin”, right?
Me: I think so. Check Google Images.
Carlos: How do you spell it?
Me: O-P-
Carlos: O?!
—
[I was talking to Carlos about something I can't remember and I said, "even though I'm not Latina"]
10 year old [interrupts]: You are too!
Me: No, honey, I’m not.
10 year old: You are Latina! You’re half like me!
Me: No, baby, I’m not Latina.
10 year old: Mommy, you are, cause you married Daddy.
Me: If you marry someone from China, are you going to be half Chinese?
10 year old: Yeah, of course!
Me: Oh. I didn’t know it worked that way.
—
Me: How do you say “listeners” in Spanish?
Carlos: What kind of listeners?
Me: Like listeners to a radio show… Would it be “escuchantes?”
—
Me: It’s in Kansas.
Carlos: Which Kansas?
Me: What do you mean which one? Kansas, the state.
Carlos: But is it in Kansas or Ar-Kansas?
—
Gringo co-worker: Hey you see those two German Shepherds over there?
Carlos: Yeah.
Gringo co-worker: You better watch out. They don’t like Mexicans.
Carlos: Well, good thing I’m not Mexican.
—
13 year old: I’m supposed to make tabs to divide my notebook for Spanish class.
Me: Okay.
13 year old: The teacher wants us to label one of the tabs “RECURSOS.”
Me: Mmhm.
13 year old: What does it mean?
Me: Can you take a guess?
13 year old: …Um… Repeat diarrhea?
Hey, at least he broke the word down and made a logical guess based on what he knows. (“Curso” is slang for “diarrhea” in El Salvador – not sure if that’s the case for anywhere else.)
—
[Me reading bedtime story to my 10 year old]
Me: “¿Puedes encontrar la araña?”
10 year old: Mommy, I’m not stupid. The spider is right there.
—
“You have to give me the credit of the doubt.” – Carlos
(He mixed up “Give me credit” and “benefit of the doubt.”)
—
“Do you know what time Obama is supposed to start speaking? … I want to watch but I don’t want to miss Chavito.” – Carlos
—
“You’re just adding more wood to the fire.” – Carlos
(He meant “fuel to the fire.”)
—
“I want to rent that movie Chale Homes.” – Carlos unsuccessfully trying to say “Sherlock Holmes” but sounding like a Chicano instead.
—
What is the funniest conversation you’ve had lately?
Posted on October 30, 2012, in Corazón, el macho, Familia, humor, Language, niños, Spanglish. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
Lol!! :)
Sent from my iPhone
:)
Lmao! Some of these r hilarious! It’s funny because I do the same thing with some English phrases, even though I was born here I grew up in a strictly Spanish speaking household, my parents speak English fine they just didn’t speak English with me, so I didn’t grow up learn all the English catch phrases lol
The idioms and “dichos” are so easy to mix up because sometimes there are similar ones in Spanish/English, but they aren’t quite the same! … When Ricky Ricardo mixed them up on I Love Lucy, that was always one of my favorite things :)
Love reading about conversations like this. It reminds me of my house for sure! I especially loved the conversation between you and your son about being 1/2 Latina. So cute!
Yes, I’m sure a lot of bicultural/bilingual households will relate to these conversations! :)
LOL! English and Spanish are both foreign languages for me, and I recognize myself in this. Escuchantes sounds perfectly fine to me. You’ve got hispanohablantes, and hispanoescuchantes. Why not right?
Just like kansas and arkansas. How am I supposed to know the second one rhymes with saw? And then opossum. I mean, can anybody explain a foreigner what’s is going on there? Anybody?!
Anyway, nice one señora Lopez. Always fun coming here.
So glad you enjoyed and I love that neither English or Spanish is your first language and this still entertained you.
As for what’s going on with “opossum” – I have no idea! Maybe the “o” used to be pronounced but we got lazy. LOL.
Here are some poems about the inconsistencies in English (it even gives me a headache to read them!)
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/ar-eng1.htm
jeje ¡chévere! Dudo que sea posible hacer una poema así sobre el español. Creo que no. El inglés es un caso… interesante…
Actually, check out this video! :)
It’s an indigenous word. I’m an English teacher in DF, Mexico and I love/hate this about English….sometimes you just gotta cite (or guess!) the language a word came from, shrug, and say “It’s French, I think!”
opossum (n.)
1610, from Powhatan (Algonquian) opassum, “equivalent to a proto-Algonquian term meaning ‘white dog’” [Bright].
So interesting! Thanks for teaching us something new :)
Hahahahha! I love it! We enjoy a lot of “Latino-isms” and fun Spanglish in our household too. Our 3-year old daughter’s favorite joke is:
“Cual es el queso más divertido?”
“CHISTE!!” (Get it, CHEESE te?!) :-)
I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff, but keep it coming!
LOL! That is a clever Spanglish joke!
I have forever said “You’re just adding more wood to the fire.” LOL This made me LAUGH so hard… y eso de RECURSOS,!!! OMG! This was great!!!
aprendi algo nuevo nunca escuche ‘curso’ para diarrea, digamos ‘chorillo’
don’t forget churria, lol.
We have weird language conversations at home too! Feng cannot understand why in French, half of the letters are silent. i.e. in “Mont Blanc” the “t” and the “c” are silent. He pronounces them just to annoy me :lol:
HA ha ha! I love how he answered about the arana… that is excelente. Estaba muy emocionada encontrar tu blog porque somos muy parecidas, yo tambien soy gringa que siempre me senti latina. Ahora me case con un latino y estoy tratando de criar nuestra primer hija bilingual y bicultural. Gracias por escribir sobre tus experiencias, me hace sentir menos solita.
Bienvenida! I totally remember feeling alone and part of starting this blog was to find others who are living biculturally and bilingually. If you haven’t discovered it already, there is a huge community over at SpanglishBaby.com :)
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