Confusing Words

One of the great challenges, and trust me there have been many, in learning a new language is trying not confuse words that sound alike, but have different meanings. To think this was an easy hurdle for me to overcome, well obviously you aren’t that familiar with my foreign language rap sheet and the troubles I’ve had in my past with learning a new language.

To wit, look at the following three words…

hambre (hungry)

hombre (man)

hombro (shoulder)

…three different words, all with close pronunciations, but different meanings. When you’re a relative newcomer to the Spanish language business that is trying to speak and understand things at a fairly quick pace, trying not to mix up words is tough to avoid. If your head isn’t spinning yet, these on for size…

caballo (horse)

caballero (gentleman)

cabello (hair)

…good. Say those three words five times fast and see if you don’t get the words mixed up. Ok, so you didn’t, but at one time this novice speaker did. What can I say?

Overcoming these obstacles is my great task in trying to reach my goal of becoming a fluent speaker in Spanish. I hope that at the end of my two years, I can speak fast, listen faster, and avoid embarrassing episodes like this one:

Late one evening (ok, it was like 7:00pm, but that’s late now) during my fourth week in Panama, I was physically and mentally drained from a long day. However, the father of the family I was staying with was peppering this odd person (me) with questions. Doing my best to answer, I was often forced to simple “yes” / “no” answers due to my lack of vocabulary at the time. When I thought the question of “are you tired” came at me, I quickly responded with “yes” and didn’t think anymore about it.

Well, that was until the next afternoon when the Spanish teacher told me how the whole town thought I was married. You see, it turns out the word for married (casado) is oh so close to the word for tired (cansado). Whoops! Thankfully, my Spanish teacher straightened out the problem, while I just chalked it up to another (mis)adventure in Panama.