Knowing Spanish comes in handy

Question

I work for an engineering firm in southern California. This afternoon a coworker walked in my office and handed me her cell phone. "You speak Spanish, don't you? This guy keeps calling me and I can't understand what he's saying."

He wanted to make an appointment with his dentist. I told him I was very sorry, but he had the wrong number. This wasn't the dentist's office. He apologized, thanked me and hung up.

Not exactly Nobel laureate level Spanish, but my coworker was impressed. Wrong numbers from Spanish-speaking people are not uncommon here in SoCal. Being able to say, "Sorry, wrong number" is a handy thing.

Answer 1

I hope you didn't say "Hello, this is Kevin..."I'm married, old, and fat" "Can I help you?"

:) - Sabor, Feb 17, 2011

jeje - KevinB, Feb 17, 2011

Answer 2

Don't keep us in suspense Kevin. Did you say "tienes el número equivocado" or did you use haber or what? Did you go off and use the usted form? Inquiring minds.

Answer 3

That's a great story Kevin. Maybe some day I can post something like that on this forum.

Answer 4

Nice! It's cool that you were able to impress your coworker, hopefully she's cute!

Cute, but married. OTOH, I'm old and fat, and also married. - KevinB, Feb 17, 2011

Answer 5

I know what you mean I live by the border of Mexico and the place I work at atleast twice a day I have someone I need to talk to in Spanish because they don't speak English.

Answer 6

Jeezle asked:

Don't keep us in suspense Kevin. Did you say "tienes el número equivocado" or did you use haber or what? Did you go off and use the usted form? Inquiring minds.

It was something like:

Él: Quiero hacer una cita con el dentista.
Yo: Lo siento, pero creo que tienes el número equivocado. Este teléfono pertenece a un ingeniero. No es dentista.
É: Oh, lo siento mucho.
Yo: No hay problema. Bye.

I used tú because I almost always use tú unless I'm talking to my elders, and I didn't say la ingeniero because I didn't want him to know he'd stumbled onto a woman's telephone number.

Not as scintillating as your discussions with the bartender about glasses made out of water, but it solved the problem.

I agree, I rarely use usted even with strangers, and they rarely use it with me. Which is odd if you think about the fact that every single text book hammers usted into like crazy. - jeezzle, Feb 17, 2011

It depends on where you are. Argentina is (or was, anyway) much more formal, for example. And it's always polite. You can't offend anyone if you use usted. - KevinB, Feb 17, 2011