I wish I could take credit for my husband’s knowledge of the Spanish language. He isn’t exactly fluent, but he can more than get by. (He learned Spanish long before we met.) I find it amusing that when ordering a meal at a Mexican restaurant the servers always nod to me with approval assuming the white man ordering a meal in Spanish with his “gringo” accent was thought by the brown woman sitting with him.
On the rare occasion someone actually congratulates me on his Spanish, I am honest and tell them I can’t take credit by saying “Yo no lo enseñe” (I didn’t teach him)
What I have been teaching him are sayings that he absorbs and stores in that impressive memory he has. The first and most used in our household is “No lo hagas como tus patas” which translates to “don’t do it like your feet”. It is the equivalent of saying “don’t do it half assed”. I have found out that griping at my husband in Spanish defuses many bad situations because they turn in to a teaching moment, and there is usually something funny about the translation.
The teaching isn’t one way either. English IS my second language, and though I was born in the states I did live many years in Mexico. There are sayings in English I had never heard of and have no idea how they came about. My husband always (his head is full of facts) shares a brief history on them and manages to impress and entertain me.
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