lost in translation: compliments

Literally every Spaniard I met during my year abroad, and this is no exaggeration, complimented my Spanish.

Wait, don’t roll your eyes and stop reading! Hear me out!

At first I was elated. I thought, after two weeks of being in that country, “Dayummm, I’m on fire here!” But then I started picking up on something. These comments didn’t follow long conversations that exhibited my skilled control over verb conjugations or the subjunctive tense (which, at that time, was not skilled at all, but more like a guessing game). More often than not they didn’t even follow what can be considered conversations at all! Here are some scenarios that exemplify my point:

            #1: In the dining hall, asking the chef for more coffee. “Más café, por favor.” Más is probably learned in the first week of Spanish class, right after sí, no, and me llamo Jenny. Café is a cognate. And if you travel to Spain without knowing how to say “por favor,” your manners and upbringing will be questioned. But the chef overlooked all these tid-bits and expressed his amazement at my masterful handle on the language.

            #2. Madrid bus station, 2 hours after arriving in Spain. Me: “Uno a Granada, por favor.” Attendant: “You speak really great Spanish!” He must have brushed aside the fact that he could have understood the destination of my desired ticket merely from the name of the city. (Looking back, I don’t know if I should be more shocked that he complimented this juvenile level of Spanish or that he smiled and made a compliment at all. Customer Service in Spain is not the warmest).

#3. My all-time favorite, buying sheets at a department store. This is when I knew that this complimentary trend was more automatic than heartfelt. I say one word, one tiny four-letter word, and accompany it with a gesture: “¿Pago?” I ask as I point to the cash register. The salesman explodes with a massive grin and a whopping, “WOW! You speak such great Spanish! How long have you been in Granada?!?”

It was then that I shed my false ego and realized that if someone would compliment my language level after hearing only one word, they were clearly overdoing the praise and most likely just trying to flatter me into buying more sheets.