Mr. Garcia just flew his lesson plans into the office. He came into the office, walking with a slight crouch, arms outstretched as he banked wide corners. His mouth making an engine sound. As he dropped his lesson plan notebook, his engine sound changed to a dropping sound. “phhwwwhhheeeewwww, boom!”
The secretary and I laughed at his antics. I said, “Eres un buen pilota!”
Roughly translated, that means: You’re a good girl pilot!
“Piloto!” Mr. Garcia gently corrected me, and all the Spanish speakers in the office started to laugh.
“You’re a really good girl pilot!” I insisted, pretending I knew what I was saying.
After he left the room, I admitted to the secretary that I wasn’t even sure that “pilota” was a word, so I was glad that I had at least gotten so close to using the correct word. “This reminds me of a time in college,” I continued, “when I jokingly said that ‘helicoptero’ was the Spanish word for ‘helicopter,’ and was correct. My Spanish professor encouraged me, saying, ‘muy bien, flaquita!,’ and I was like, ‘SERIOUSLY? THAT IS REALLY THE WORD FOR IT?’
The Secretary laughs, agreeing with me that it’s so much easier when the words are almost the same in English and Spanish.
I tell her that my professor used to make me practice saying a one really long word that was almost the same in English and Spanish to work on my “O” sound. “Otorrinolaringólogo,” I say.
The Secretary snapped her head towards me and asked, “What?!”
“Otorrinolaringólogo!”
More blank stares. So I said it a third time. “Otorrinolaringólogo! It means Ear Nose and Throat Doctor! The medical term in English is ‘Otolaryngologist.’”
The Secretary, a native Spanish speaker, stared at me as if I had just grown a patch of sunflowers for a beard. She asked, “in what language?!”
And there it is: the big news for today. I have finally won a “Who Knows What This Spanish Word Means?” Contest. And it feels good. Even if the word is so obscure that my spell checker doesn’t recognize it in its English or Spanish version.
ok, now you’re just showing off.
Didn’t Jesus just teach us that word because it was fun to say?
You have to be careful though!! Some words are not what they seem to mean.
One day in high school Spanish class, there was an older (hispanic) dude who had never been there before. Not really knowing what I was saying, I asked him, “Usted va a asistir esta clase?” Thinking that he was going to help us with colloquial speech or maybe our accents.
He looked sooo embarassed and shyly replied “Si” and kind of slumped down in his seat.
Turns out, “asistir” means “to attend” not “to assist” and this guy was actually a 30-something student coming back to get his high school diploma. (Spanish class was easy credits I guess)
It wouldn’t have been less embarassing for either of us if I had actually asked “Are you assisting with class today” because the answer still would have been “No, I’m a student.” Either way, I feel really bad about embarassing him.
@ Katy: Yes and no–he did teach us that word just for fun when we were taking classes together. Then, during the summer when I studied with him in Mexico, he noticed that I would often slip hard English vowels into my words when I wasn’t focusing on Spanish pronunciation. He made me say that word a million times so I’d say the “o” sound correctly.
@ Courtney: Oh, believe me, I’ve had my fair share of embarrassing false cognates before, too. Once I meant to tell someone in Spanish that I was embarrassed about something, but instead, informed them that I was pregnant. (embarasoso/embarasada). After I declared myself to be a pregnant 16 year old in front of a large crowd of people, I was significantly more embarrassed than I had been about whatever had embarrassed me to begin with. I believe I finally just tossed my hands up and walked away.