It was another gorgeous night at the turf field with la Universidad de Sevilla. My teammate and new friend Borrote had a great run from the 22 to score the try. I gave her a high five and said enthusiastically “buen corrida!” She throws her head back and bursts out laughing. I freeze, my mind starts reeling, oh no, what did I just say. I looked at her, brows furrowed. Between laughs she gets out, “Don’t… don’t say that.” After thinking for a moment I had realized what I’d done…

In Spanish the verb correr means “to run.” In the past participle you change -er verbs to ido. So in my head it seemed I was saying good run. However, the verb correrse also means to have an orgasm. So, it turns out I had just told my teammate GOOD ORGASM! :)

I was indeed VERY EMBARRASSED. It took me quite a bit of time to come to terms with what I had done. But, we live and we learn. And now after a good run, my teammates love to tell me buen corrida which is also absolutely not grammatically correct nor a contextually appropriate thing to say but it is freaking FUNNY. 

Now I like to think that my Spanish is improving. And I really do think it is. But there are some days where I literally cannot comprehend a word. It’s especially difficult when someone has a strong Andalusian accent and a mask on. Last weekend at work a nice older man started talking to me. I literally could not differentiate one word from the next. I was trying to use context clues, we were at the gym… he showed me his gym access card… I knew he asked where I was from but after that I was lost. I could tell by his tone he was waiting for a response so I asked him to write it down on paper so I could better understand. I cackled when I flipped the paper around and all it said was…

 “CHUCK NORRIS”  in capital letters.  

I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I thought we were talking about but it certainly was not Chuck Norris… Nor Clint Eastwood which was the next topic to pop up on the paper (as seen below). 

I’m sure I’ll be seeing this man again next Sunday and I’m hoping that maybe just maybe every week I’ll be able to understand a little bit more.