That One Chick #2
When I was in first grade–a million years ago–they sat a new girl next to me who only spoke Spanish. She chatted away as if I completely understood every word she said. At last, when there was a break in the jabber, for some odd reason I rattled off a page and a half of gibberish. No, no…I mean, “Blucky bluck nanner neener geber, doody snoo.”
I have no idea why I did it, but she smiled and nodded her head like she’d understood every word and then “answered” me back in another barrage of Spanish. Not knowing what to do, and being only 6-1/2 years old–I tried my linguistic skills again.
“Toader moder linny googer waggle haggle doop.”
Again she smiled and nodded and spoke back in Spanish.
Gubble nooble feedo meely sacky spickle pooky foo.
This went on for about 10 minutes–the foreigner and the fraud. Actually, I think I came to believe that somehow, I must in reality, be speaking Spanish. No idea what I was saying, but what did it matter? She understood me!
Maybe I was MAGIC. Coooool!
Then, from across the room, the teacher who was watching us having an obviously delightful conversation together came over and said, “Oh, Launi– I’m so glad you speak Spanish. Please tell Rosa to go hang up her coat.”
But wait…
ahhhhhh….
uh-oh.
Busted.
I saw no open window that I could rationally jump through and plunge to my death. So with no other choice available to me, I dove under the desk and proceeded to bawl my head off.
Alas, my magic gift of tongues never came back.
pooder pokey doo.
The End
*Remember to comment on my blog posts during the month of February to be entered in to win!
For more information on “That One Chick” giveaway click HERE
You could win some cool stuff!
that is seriously hilarious. i love it!!
i once tutored a little boy who only spoke spanish. he was learning how to read in english. it was SO HARD! but i remember once i went in to tutor him after a long long semester and it finally clicked and i was so proud of him. and i felt like i was apart of that happening.
OK, htis cracked us up at work when Jillian read it..we could use you her in the office whan we have Spanish-speaking customers, you know..nalej jdfio coo dose easejo HAHAHAHAHA
Instead of going to FL for Spring Break as a Sr. 4 of us French students and the French teacher went to Quebec. We had saved money for a special dinner out one night and we needed to make reservations for the restaurant. The teacher said that she would not call, that one of us had to use our French lessons and make the reservation. So I was nominated. It seemed to all go well, (I mean I was speaking in French) the man said “good bye” and that was it. Whew! Well when we got to the restaurant the man spoke to us in English this time and asked who had made the reservation. They all looked at me. Then the big question came….. he apologized and asked if he had offended me. WHY? I thought. It had all seemed to go well and we had pleasantly said good by in French. So I said “no, why?” He told me that he had said to me ‘you have a nice sounding voice’ (which I had translated into good bye) and my response to him was “good-bye”. I was SO embarrassed!!! So I apologized (in English) and thanked him, and we had a wonderful dinner in a quaint little French restaurant.
I’m never pretended to speak spanish, but I did learn a little bit in school. Sometimes when I tell people that they start talking to me in spanish and I”m like, ummm, “Si?” Ya I don’t know much. Right now I visit teach a girl who is from Columbia and is learning English. The more she learns the easier it is to teach her but they called me because I speak spanish and I”m like wait, I don’t really speak enough to visit someone. OH well, it’s getting better because she is getting better at English.
What? You don’t speak Spanish???? That was freaking hilarious!!! I could just picture you. I’ve never had an experience like that, nor have I spoken in tongues. But a friend of mine said she has been to numerous other churches where everyone talks gibberish like that. They think they are speaking in tongues, but no one understands what each other is saying. They just speak gibberish to each other. How they think that is speaking in tongues, I have no clue.
Don’t you hate that the teacher called you out on your fraud? I would have cried too.
And tell Laurie “Happy Birthday” from me as well.
You should be proud of him. Languages are really hard. My cute son in Lithuania had a devil of at time learning at first. But now, he’s helping other people. Tough stuff.
Welllll….it would be my DREAM job to be paid for speaking jibberish. As it is I speak it all day long and no one even pays attention…let alone cash.
ha!
What a great story! We ate at a restaurant in Paris when I was about 16 and all I remember about the experience was that the waiter freaked out because I asked for a glass of water. No lie. The guy started yelling at me, “Are you a dog?! Should I bring you a bowl?!”
Sheesh. Mean old French guy.
If I had to learn a language, I’d like to learn French–it seems pretty to me. But it’s all a bit daunting to me.
No, no. The scary thing wasn’t that she CAUGHT me. It was that she–from the other side of the room–only SAW us talking. She didn’t hear a word I’d said. She reeeally thought I could speak Spanish–because we were yaking and smiling away.
It was terrifying. Pretty funny now though.
:]
HA ha ha… that’s pretty funny! 🙂 I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish, but it’s sooo that I could ease-drop. HA ha ha! I just want to know the rotten things people are saying because they don’t think I can understand them and then bust out something of my own! 😛 That’s probably why it hasn’t happened yet… not a worthy enough reason to learn it! 😉
Oh yah.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT LAURIE!!! ***:D***
HAHAHAHAHA. This post made me laugh so hard!!! Whenever people try to speak spanish to me, I simply reply with things like, “si. mucho burrito.” or just ramble off random foods. “taco, tortilla, chimichanga, quesidilla.”
Then they usually say something else in spanish, which I’m assuming is something vulgar and full of anger.
But guess what?
problem solved.
I read that to everyone at work. It just cracked me up–somehow I’ve never heard that story before!!
I learned Spanish in High School because growing up in Texas and being half Mexican, I had lots of people coming up to me speaking Spanish and couldn’t help them. I still can’t help them.
Ohh, thanks for the laugh! That was hilarious!! Still laughing about it! I SHOULD have taken spanish in school because now I’m married to a guy from Peru and I don’t speak Spanish and I need to learn so I can talk to his family. (Just thought I’d share that.) 🙂