Sun, 22 November 2009
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Grappling with the surreal world of the subjunctive? One expat relates his first experiences getting his tongue - and his head - around Spanish.
Picture the scene. It's a wonderfully sunny spring day and I'm relaxing on a beach in Marbella with a group of British and Spanish friends. 
Everyone is having a good old banter as we sip beers and wine whilebasking in the sunshine.
Now given that estoy means 'I am' in Spanish and caliente translates as 'hot', it seems only reasonable to join the two words together:
'Estoy caliente!' I exclaim, wiping the sweat off my brow.
The people around me, especially the women, start to giggle…what on earth had I said?
"You’ve just told them that you are hot," explains a male friend.
"But not in a temperature sense, more in a…how should I say…athletic sense." Ah! No wonder the girls are grinning.
A Spanish teacher at work
What I should have said was tengo calor – literally 'I have heat'. How embarrassing. 
Still, although they chuckled at my mistake, there was no hint of malice in the faces of my Spanish acquaintances, just amusement.
From that moment onwards I was taken under their wing as a Brit abroad who was at least trying his best to speak a few words of the native tongue and they were more than prepared to give me some credit for that.
But should I be attempting more? Let me explain. I have been living on the Costa del Sol for just over a year now, having made the move from Britain.
The problem is that I don't really have that much opportunity to speak the language during the course of my work as most of the people I come into contact with speak English, or even if they are Spanish, they tend to revert to English once they discover my inability to converse fluently in castellaño.
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