I’m getting a lot more comfortable with speaking Spanish. Even though I’m back in California, I’ve been speaking Spanish to anyone that will listen :). Today I ordered a burrito in Spanish (baby steps…haha):
“Quisera un burrito de frijoles, arroz, lechuga y tomate. Y zanahorias tambien, por favor. Para llevar. Gracias”
“I would like a burrito of bean, rice, lettuce and tomato. And hot carrots too, please. To go. Thank you!”
I’ve always been somewhat shy to bust out Spanish (at least in CA), because I’ve always felt like people whose 1st language is Spanish are a part of this secret club that I don’t belong to. 
I’m joining your club damn it! Like it or not! Actually, I’ve found that when I speak Spanish, it surprises people at 1st and then they are really nice to me and are happy to help me learn, which is really cool.
I’ve been doing work service for San Diego county lately and there is almost always a communication gap between the men that speak only Spanish and the officers who speak only English, so I’ve been trying to help them communicate and it’s actually getting much easier for me. And then I bug the people that speak English and Spanish with questions all day:
“Como se dice spider en Espanol” (How do you say spider in Spanish?)
I found out that “spider” is araña in Spanish and araña is also commonly used for soft leaf rakes. Learn something new everyday, eh?
Popularity: 15% [?]
I don’t know about “soft leaf rake”, maybe they call a lawn rake an araña, but I never heird of it, maybe a regional usage from Mexico, but araña is araña. I hate arañas. I hate “culebras” and “serpientes” too, (snakes and serpents).
you can also learn how to type the ñ in your keyboard: It’s considered a “Special Character”.
you turn NUM LOCK key to ON, then you press the ALT key, then you type the following three numbers: 164 while holding the ALT key, and you get: ñ
YEEHAWWW!
here’s some more:
ALT 160 equals á (estás) (you are, are you?)
ALT 130 equals é (José)
ALT 161 equals í (maní) (peanuts)
ALT 162 equals ó (mangó)(the fruit)
ALT 163 equals ú (tú) (you)
ALT 164 equals ñ (araña, Español)
ALT 168 equals ¿ (all questions in Español start with an upside down question mark, like
this: ¿como estás?
Many many other words use accents on the vowels, so keep it in mind.
so congratulations (felicidades) for learning Español, it’s easy. English is similar to Spanish in so many many words.
I am a Perfect Bilingual, or is it “Purrrfect Bilingual”?
José
O! u do all the blogging. I thought stefan did it and i was wondering how he has time to do that and work on the house with no electricity.
I get it
Carrie…you are close. Summer and I both post on here…it’s a team effort!
I am super busy with the house and work…but I make the time to keep this updated so ya’ll know what’s going on with your vacation house in Puerto Rico!
Jose - That’s some good info there! I can’t figure out how to get the acentos to work on my keyboard (I’m on a Macintosh, so it’s probably slightly different.), I’ll have to look it up when I have a few minutos.