Comment from emmi

‘¡Axilas!’ what a frightening looking word,……….how is it pronounced? I just hate the “X” letter!

Comment from noelle

Couldn’t agree more. I’ll never forgot the day I proudly referred to a friend’s 18 month old angelic son as a cabron instead of a varon! I came out in a cold sweat two days later when I realised what I had done and apologised profusely to his proud father! Noelle

Comment from LC

I also have difficulty confusing similar words. (hidago y hidalgo are also two of mine). But there are some are words that you never, never want to confuse. Let’s just say that during my month in Spain, knowing about my weakness with these two particular words and my tendency to confuse the two, I resolved to never, never ask for chicken, pollo, in a restaurant or with friends. To this day I avoid the word, seeming incapable of remembering on the fly that the word I want isn’t it’s feminine counterpart, something you definitely don’t want to request in a restaurant. My friends in Spain all know about this little glitch in my head and find it very funny. I do too I suppose, but just to be safe, I never ask for chicken in a restaurant (in Spain) or with people I only know casually. In my own defense, though, I can say that it seems illogical to me that the word I don’t want in this situation is a feminine word. It represents something masculine; how can it be femine? (my thinking goes). And therein lies my confusion between the two words and the birthplace of my (now completely imbedded) problem. Anyway, I prefer las coquinas, las gambas o el jamón and can gladly live without chicken.

Comment from Anna

I always mess up – because of pronunciation – the word for comb and a part of the mail anatomy. For that reason I never ever ask for a comb…it is always a brush!

Comment from ivana

Me maté de risa con tu historia Ben, Nosotros en casa usamos mucho la palabra sobaco. De hecho casi nunca decimos ¨que olor a axila!¨ Yo siempre les digo a mis alumnos que no tengan miedo de hablar, yo meto mucho la pata hablando en inglés! pero así es la vida no? Un abrazo desde Connecticut

Comment from andy

a problem is these words – in pronunciation and also through typing without spanish accents…año and ano…I have caused my Spanish daughter in law much amusement!

Comment from Sam Jones

Una pregunta, Ben, ¿porque no usas sorbaco? En el diccionario, los dos palabras traducen como ‘armpits’ y no dice que sorbaco es peligroso!!

Comment from Sarah Spencer

Great article Ben and aptly timed as I am trying to come to terms with my fear of making mistakes or not understanding something in Spanish, which leads to hardly using it at all. I am starting new lessons today with a friend in the village I live in.
I also ALWAYS mix up hígado and hidalgo and had to refer to the menu the other day when ordering liver for my friend!
Keep up the great work.
Here’s my new blog about my Spanish language progress and I intend to write regularly about how useful NIS is.
http://www.spanishjourney.wordpress.com
Many thanks,
Sarah

Comment from Ariane

Great story Ben. I’ve got many stories like that mixing up cordones and condones, llano and llanto, paladar and parador, etc. If nothing else, they served for a good chuckle.

Comment from Si

I am half spanish(live in Isle o Man) and see a cool spanish auntie in her 80s who lives in uk ..her my sis` & I went out for my B`day.
she was talking about calling a friend a `pig` as a joke in espanol…so i popped out with ~Maricon,maricon!!…she is very open minded but looked a bit shocked and said thats very rude !!!…i said i thought it meant `sissy` as i saw it said by a little girl in a film when a boy wouldn`t roll down a hill…she laughed and said it can mean that but perhaps i won`t use it around less well know spaniards…what do you think? I don`t swear often by the way in either language!!! Si

Comment from jeff

Ben your story reverberates with a lot of people who have found themselves in deep (or hot) water in their attempts to dive into heavy translation work. Hopefully most of it is really a funny anecdote, and a definite learning experience! I, too, have problems with “hidago” and almost always place the accent wrong when I speak it. I would love to hear a recording of a class like that. What an interesting podcast that would make, with your friend saying the English, and you doing the translation. It would help us all relax and learn spanish at the same time. Thanks for sharing that.

Comment from Sue

So glad that I am not the only one. I launched into an explanation in Malaga on a visit there, about my poor bones. I explained that they break easily. All about me were smiling and I could see they were just waiting to burst into giggles. I had been saying ‘Mis huesos rota fácilmente, porque tengo pobres densidad ósea’ alas rather than saying huesos I had been saying huevos – no wonder they giggled. Still it all adds to the fun.

Comment from Tom

Cuando se consulta el diccionario de la Real Academia Española, se ve
axila.

(Del lat. axilla).

1. f. sobaco (? del brazo).

2. f. Bot. Ángulo formado por la articulación de cualquiera de las partes de la planta con el tronco o la rama.

Así que no me parece que “sobaco” sea demasiado informal.

Comment from Margaret Nahmias

That’s great Ben. Axila is the formal English term by the way for underarm.

Comment from Vanessa

Ahhh! I loved this blog!! It made my Wednesday morning. What I love the most is that we all have had these moments…we all have fallen into the trap of using the wrong word here or there, but it ALWYAS makes for a good story!

Also I loved the ending, “So forget about worrying about Spanish being too hard, or about making mistakes in public – forget all your worries, and jump in with both feet as I did this weekend!” This is true, this is soo TRUE…it makes want to run to the streets and scream Spanish at the tops of my lungs!

Thank you thank you thank you for the rockin’ blog! Keep up the amazing work!

Vanessa

Comment from Amie

laughing aloud, Ben! que comico y que buena inspiracion!

Comment from Molly

You had me laughing a carcajadas while sipping my coffee this morning! My husband didn’t know what to think. Thanks for the laugh, I needed that, and the inspiration!

Comment from Ben

Thanks to everyone for all the great comments and wonderful stories of similar confusions!

In reply to a few specific questions:

@emmi – just like the ‘x’ is ‘Axe’ – I find ‘j’s more scary in words like ‘ejercicio’!

@Sam Jones and Tom – It’s a situation thing – this situation called for formal anatomical words like ‘axila’, and sobaco is just less formal, so it sounded very odd in that particular setting, even though they mean the same thing.

@Sarah Spencer – Thanks in advance for the mentions!

@Si – I’ve done this a lot – hear a swear word used apparently innocently in one place, then repeat it in another to the shock of someone else and my total bewilderment as to what the difference was!

@Jeff – good idea, maybe I’ll get Marina to do a ‘relaxation’ podcast one day!

Comment from Fred

One way to remember hidalgo is that I think it comes from the expression ‘hijo de algo’ — son of someone..or nobleman.

That’s just my method.

Comment from Rudy

Excellent!! I never knew there was another word besides “Sobaco”! I learn so much from you!! Keep them coming:)

Comment from James

In response to Si’s comment. I have just return from Spain, and while I was there I heard a lot of swear words. I think the difference is between the words ‘marica’ and ‘maricón’. A subtle but important difference, ¿verdad? James

Comment from kentaro

Yo siempre confundía “fósforo” con “semáforo”. Se murieron de risa las cajeras de un mercadito en México cuando les pedí semáforos en lugar de un librito de fósforos para que me pudiese encender un cigarrillo. Afortunadamente, he dejado de fumar, así que ya no voy pidiendo “stoplights”.

Comment from Jeni

I am loving these stories. I have a couple:
First, while living in Spain, I had to order a “pollo en trozos” from the butcher, but to my horror, it come with head and feet in there too. So the next time, I asked for a pollo en trozos “sin cabeza y patas” because I had no idea how to say chicken feet! The butcher giggled at me, but I got what I wanted!
More recently, since my Spanish is rusty, I made the rookie mistake of telling someone I was “excitada” when I meant “ilusionada.” Luckily, it was a good friend and I was able to make a joke out of it. ay ay ay

I don’t have issues w/ Hidalgo, probably bc a good friend of mine’s surname is Hidalgo and I never think of him as a liver.

Comment from Richard Dickinson

Hi I bought your course and I have learned a lot from your beginners course. But intermediate and advanced without the translation are too difficult, do you know of anyone that is doing intermediate and advanced with the translation in Spain, I would appreciate it very much. I have found courses for Latin American spanish with translation but that isn’t what I am looking for.
Kind regards
Richard Dickinson

Comment from joyce

Ben, thank you SO much for recounting your embarrassing story. We all have these moments while learning, and I am having them more often as I have overcome my shyness and am jumping into the conversation and fighting my way through.

It’s good to hear that the “teacher” still has them. We “extranjeros” will continue to learn for the rest of our lives.

Comment from Andrew

Hilarious and informative at the same time. This is one of those areas where I wonder if maybe rote memorizing terms like this ahead of time wouldn’t maybe be prudent–I’m not usually a fan of doing that kind of stuff, I prefer to determine which words and grammar I need to learn by experience (that is, if I find myself in a situation where I need a certain word and don’t know it, then I’ll note it down and think “ah, I need to learn that”), but body parts, organs, parts of a car or house, maybe some basic scientific terms, etc. might be worth the trouble to memorize before you ever need them.

Cheers,
Andrew

Comment from Irene

Great stories. We all have those moments. Being a person who finds liver disgusting, I think EGAD, I would never eat it. Then I remember higado.

Comment from bill

Hi Ben, loved your blog.I too have made a mistake with words in public.I have a mental block when it comes to Galleta and Gallina,even more so with Lechuga and Lechuza.Keep up the good work.Hasta luego, Bill.

Comment from Sharon

Thanks, Ben. As a beginner, I have been reluctant to practice speaking Spanish because one of my first attempts with friends went something like this: Tengo hombre. Me gustaría comer ahora. That haunting embarrassment has caused brain freeze whenever I needed to say hombre or hambre even though I know the difference. Your story inspires me to laugh at my mistakes and keep practicing instead of fearfully refraining.

Comment from Cata

The two I’m mixing up these days are cansado and casado, but maybe that’s appropriate sometimes…
As for hidalgo, remember the full title for “Don Quixote” is “El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha”.

Comment from chon

My solecisms are legion. Based on my knowledge of latin I once, many years ago, used the word “putas” for “do you think?” My female interlocutor was not impressed.
I also remember saying something along the lines “Ella está haciendo una tortillera en la cocina” to say where somebody was.
More seriously I always used the word sobaco. When I first met axila in Marquez I thought it was probably too high register for normal use in Spain.

Comment from Leah

Thanks for sharing your story! It makes me feel better that someone with such an advanced level of Spanish such as yourself can still make mistakes . My worst mistake to date was squishing together the words “pollo” and “asado” and accidentally ordering a “bocadillo de polla—” (I stopped right there, realizing my mistake!). Qué vergüenza!!!

Comment from Joe

I remember when I was in Spain and mixed up Oveja with Abeja.

!Mira, hay muchas ovejas en la teraza!

Comment from Linda

Thanks for the story, Ben. Had me laughing out loud and thinking that I would wake up my son who should have just fallen to sleep. The same son who asked his father, (who doesn’t speak much Spanish) what a female chicken was whilst we were ordering a meal in a restaurant! I too confuse hidalgo and higado and huesos and huevos – and pajaro and pareja!!

Comment from Steve

In terms of pronunciation, you could try http://www.google.com and then ‘Language Tools’ then get the ‘English to Spanish’ translation. It then offers a ‘Listen’ facility – seems ok to me (but I’m just a beginner!)

for example:

http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=&ie=UTF-8&text=Axilas&sl=es&tl=en#

Comment from JP

Soy frances de canada entonces Ingles es como español por vosotros.
One day I was discussing in English in front of a psychoanalytic crowd a movie (The son’s room) and I said that there was always like a veal between the spectator and the caracter (the therapist), like a cloud of uncertainty, you know. Nobody reacted (the word was used a number of time by me). The next morning, I woke up in a panick, God I meant vail not veal.

Comment from Francesca

I know the feeling of saying the wrong thing! I studied and learned Spanish in Barcelona. I live in the US and I am studying to be a medical interpreter. Majority of my classmates are from Mexico and South America, we are learning how to say certain medical terms in Spanish, the other day we came across “going to prick your finger” referring to a blood test and the instructor was wanting to know how we would interprete that phrase and I raised my hand and said I thought it should be “va a pinchar al dedo”, well the whole class gasped and said in their countries “pinchar” is a vulgar word and to never use it. Great!

Comment from Tristan

Nice story Ben and good inspiration to keep speaking. I also had some friends giggling when I told them how I was “Hablando con LA papa de mi esposa” instead of “hablando con EL papa de mi esposa” – “I was talking to my wife’s potato” instead of “My wife’s father”. It’s all part of the fun, right?

Comment from luke

Very funny story, makes me feel much better about my slip-ups.
Useless piece of information: the Scots call an armpit an “oxter”.

Comment from Ben

GRACIAS! For all the new wonderful comments, stories and suggestions – we rarely get this many comments, so I see that we all appreciate the need to be able to get things wrong and not feel bothered by it – which is great!

Comment from Eros

Hola!
I’m following you since almost the beginning and I wanted to thank you for your work. I really like the “atmosphere”, almost more than the lessons for themself: i really like the way you sit there and discuss about ways of talking and stuff, making us feel like to be part of the conversation, like friends.
I’m about to fly to Barcelona to start my little life dream: to live there for some months. I opened a blog to talk about my experience and i recently mentioned your project as one of the best and funniest way to learn Spanish. I hope you like that.
Thank you again and.. good work!

Comment from Sue

I had to laugh! When we first came to live in Lanzarote we lived in a road called El Sobaco. We didn’t know what it meant at all until we went to our lawyer’s office to finalise some legalities – it was when he burst into a fit of the giggles that we knew something was up!

Comment from Jim

This is brilliant. Very funny, very human.

I bet the relaxation session was even more relaxing…. humour relaxes everything inside.

Comment from Marta

Soy española y sí, Ben tiene razón, sobaco (no sorbaco) es una palabra muy informal, incluso si en el diccionario lo incluyen como sinónimo. Supongo que los allí presentes soltaron unas risitas porque es una palabra graciosa, y en ese ámbito resultaba cómico, pero es más correcto decir axila.
Y soy de la misma opinión de Ben: aunque se cometan errores hay que soltarse y hablar, no hay que tener miedos. Yo hago lo mismo cuando hablo inglés, y así es como se aprende. Eso es lo mismo que les digo a mis alumnos “guiris” porque soy profesora de español.
Mucho ánimo a todos

Comment from Rodney

Great story, I would have been sweating bullets, LOL. But I agree with you whole-heartedly, we’re often ready for bigger challenges than we think.

Hasta luego!

Comment from Anwar

@Francesca

Medical interpreting? Sounds interesting. Where are you studying?

Comment from Anwar

Great story, Ben.

Another way to say that someone’s armpits/underarms smell bad is “le cantan los alerones”. For an example of this expression used in context, just listen to episode #55 of the podcast called “En riguroso diferido”, entitled “El del desodorante”. Here’s the link: http://www.pocketradio.es/audio/ERD055.mp3

By the way, “Axilla” is another way to say underarms in English, but most people are unlikely to have ever heard of it or have occasion to use it as it is a medical term.

Comment from Miriam

OMG Ben,
I am sitting here working on a Sunday morning, going through my numerous e mails. Then I read your story! It made me laugh so much! Thanks for sharing, gracias por the laugh and the inspiration I am sure it will provide my 56 A.P. Spanish students when I read it to them Monday morning!

Comment from Anwar

Hi, Ben.

Were you doing simultaneous interpreting or consecutive interpreting?

Comment from Margot

You had me laughing from the moment I opened your email just now ( telling us to go to the blog)…but then it just got better and better and better……….
Me reía a carcajadas como una loca…..y aún ya estoy sonriendo mientras escribo.

Comment from Ben

Thanks again for all the great new comments! It makes me very happy to know this made a lot of you laugh!

@Anwar – as the relaxation session was very slow, it was more consecutive than simultaneous for that portion – the gaps gave me time to catch up! But there was a Q and A session later that was more simultaneous translation style! Consecutive translation is obviously easier as you have time to do the translation in chunks of speech.

Comment from Laura Middlebrooks

Perdone que le corrija, estimado Señor Curtis:

El gran favor que usted le hizo a su amigo no se llama “simultaneous translation,” porque no existe tal actividad. Usted quería decir “simultaneous INTERPRETATION”. “Interpretation” se refiere a la transmisión de un mensaje ORAL de un idioma a otro, mientras “translation” se refiere a la transmisión de un mensaje ESCRITO. La traducción es, casi por definición, una actividad mucho más lenta que la comunicación verbal, y la que se hace de manera simultánea es la INTERPRETACIÓN.

Dicho esto, es verdad que los términos españoles “traducir” y “traducción” sí pueden incluir las dos actividades de “traducir por escrito” e “interpretar oralmente,” pero no se puede traducirlos palabra por palabra al inglés. En nuestra lengua materna es imprescindible distinguir entre los dos verbos y sus sustantivos relacionados, y la triste realidad es que se confunden mucho aquí en los EEUU y en otros lugares angloparlantes.

Sin embargo, como soy fanática de sus páginas web y se las recomiendo a mis estudiantes, sé que le encanta aprender cosas nuevas, y por eso le escribo esperando que no le ofenda mi humilde contribución a su vocabulario.

Si tiene cualquier duda con respecto a estos términos, no dude en contactarme. Thank you for all your work encouraging learners of Spanish!

Dr. Laura Middlebrooks

- School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, U.S.A

- Northern Virginia AHEC (Area Health Education Center) Health and Community Setting Interpreter

- Member of the American Translators Association

- Member of the American Literary Translators Association

Comment from Ben

@Laura – tienes toda la razón, ¡gracias por la correción!