I Thought I Knew What It Meant (Part I)

One of the most exciting things about starting to learn Spanish is that it gave me a chance to confuse people and say silly things in another language. I got off to a great start in this respect and haven’t really let up since then. The worst situations were probably when I was convinced that I had the right expression but no one seemed to be able to understand me.

Some Maple Syrup

The first rule of learning a new language should be that you don’t tell long winded jokes or complicated stories. My Spanish lessons had left me fairly well equipped to order food and ask for directions but trying to tell an amusing story about the time my family lived on maple syrup for a whole month was a bridge too far. It was only once I had started wading into the details that I realised that I didn’t even know what maple syrup was called in Spanish. I had a quick look at my dictionary while everyone waited with bated breath and I translated it as jarabe de arce. I got to the punch line and got greeted by blank faces all round. It was only about a year later when watching a cartoon on the telly that I realised that they seem to call it miel de maple here for some reason, although I am not sure why they don’t translate maple to the Spanish equivalent and why they call it honey instead of syrup.