Thursday, March 31, 2005

I'm the man!

Whenever I have to talk in spanish to someone I don't know, I get a little nervous.
I have been living in Spain for 1 year and 3 months now.
Before that I knew very little about the Spanish language. But fortunately I seem to learn languages very fast (I speak and understand 5 different languages now).
My colleagues and my girlfriend tell me I speak Spanish almost perfectly, and I even think and dream in Spanish as well.

But there is always some insecurity when I have to speak to someone I don't know.
Will I be able to understand the person? (People from the South of Spain are very dificult to understand, even by Spaniards from other regions)
Will I be able to express what I'm trying to say?
Mónica even tells me that I speak with a different accent every time I talk to someone that I'm meeting for the first time. It must be nerves.

Yesterday, one of the bosses in the U.S. gave me a call in the afternoon, saying that he needed me as a translator. He had to call to Mexico, and wasn't sure if these people were going to understand him. And because I speak English and Spanish fluently, I needed to act as a translator.
I got an instant panic attack, fearing that I was going to blow it if I was not going to understand the mexican person on the other side of the phone. They do have a peculiar accent overthere, wey.
But I did just fine. I understood what they were saying, explained what my boss wanted without a problem, and everything was arranged in 2 minutes.
Afterwards my boss wrote me a message on the instant messenger, saying: you’re the man!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know excat what you mean by that. I have the same problem with English and I always get very nerveous when I have to talk in English. I'm sure your Spanish is perfect. My English isn't but i'm still learning.
Congrats on the translation :-)
Well, it's pass bedtime for me. nite nite

amiethinggoes said...

ey ey ey! nice job done! even I in my own homeland can't understand some of my countrymen, that's because every region here has different dialects. most would even know how to speak english than our own national language.

Anonymous said...

You are DEFINATELY the man ^_^ I admire you alot.

And my mom forced me to speak spanish in Mallorca, and I get nervous too, afraid I won't understand or I won't be able to express myself in the right way, I guess it's perfectly normal. For me at least... cause I'm sure your Spanish is perfect so you've got nothing to worry about :)