At my internship today, I had to call some Washington-state radio stations that air Spanish-language programs. (We are preparing to send news releases and/or PSAs about the upcoming opera, Florencia en el Amazonas [Florencia in the Amazons].) When I called one of the stations, somebody answered in Spanish, and I panicked because I wasn't prepared to speak in Spanish... because I CAN'T. I haven't done that since high school, and even back then I sucked at it. Really, I did.
Anyway, I wanted to know if she spoke English, so of course I started to say, "?Habla..." And literally, not one, not two, but *three* ellipses passed by before I came up with "ingles?" Good grief. I was so relieved when she said "yes" and gave a little laugh. Actually, I was relieved *that* she laughed. :) The problem was I wanted to automatically say "?Habla espanol?" but clearly I knew that was wrong!!! :))
Become multilingual when you're young, kiddies. That's the lesson del dia.
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