Five cute English mistakes my Spanish boyfriend makes

Although my Spanish boyfriend, José, has a high level of spoken English, there are some words and phrases he gets wrong all the time. I don’t correct all of his mistakes though, especially the ones that make him sound cute and charming. Here are some of them.

‘I am the guilty’

The other day, after José had finished doing the laundry, I found that my lovely white clothes had turned grey. I was upset.

José turned to me (with those eyes) and said: ‘I am the guilty!’

Although my clothes had been ruined, I immediately forgave him because he sounded cute and funny.

In this phrase, it’s that little word ‘the’ that makes his English sound cute (but wrong). The article is unnecessary because ‘guilty’ is an adjective.

If corrected, it would be, ‘I am guilty’ or ‘I am the guilty one’.

However, it would be more natural to use the phrase ‘it’s my fault’. To say ‘it’s my fault’ implies that you made a mistake and that you didn’t do it on purpose.

Another example was when there was a piece of cake in the fridge that I was looking forward to eating. It was the last piece of a big cake that we had both been eating over the previous two days.

As I opened the fridge door and realised it was all gone, he looked at me and said: ‘I am the guilty’.

In this case, it might be better to say ‘I am the culprit’ (including the article this time, as ‘culprit’ is a noun).

‘Culprit’ implies that you did something, while knowing it was wrong.

Again, José was forgiven; I’d eaten too much cake anyway.

Note: The Spanish is Soy el culpable.

‘Shits on the bed’

Ok, this example is not so cute, but it is funny.

One evening, it was near bedtime when Jose walked into the living room and exclaimed, ‘There are no shits on the bed!’.

‘What a relief!’ I said.

‘But we need shits. I’ll put some clean shits on the bed.’

‘Oh you mean sheets. That makes sense now.’

I realised this was nothing more than a pronunciation problem.

In this case, elongating the vowels in ‘sheets’ is absolutely crucial! Otherwise things can get very, very messy.

Of course, I have been helping José to correct his pronunciation of ‘sheets’. I don’t want him to get it wrong with other people. Imagine, for example, talking about spreadsheets with a client.

These days, José still puts ‘shits’ on the bed, but only to make me laugh.

‘Nothing happen’

The other day, José was cooking lunch but he was missing some ingredients, including garlic. So I went to the supermarket to get them. When I returned, I realised I had forgotten to buy – you guessed it – the garlic. I cursed myself and offered to go back to the shops.

‘Nothing happen!’ said José.

The Spanish phrase no pasa nada doesn’t translate into English very well. This kind of easy-going terminology is specific to countries like Spain and Italy; it doesn’t really exist in British culture!

An English speaker might say ‘don’t worry about it’ or ‘forget about it’.

Instead, José translates no pasa nada directly into English. The grammatically equivalent would  be ‘nothing happened’, using the past tense instead of the present tense.

But I let him carry on saying ‘nothing happen’, because it sounds more Spanish, and therefore more laid back and charming, which is very attractive to an uptight British person like me.

So remember, if you make mistakes in English, don’t worry, because most of the time ‘nothing happen’.

‘It’s very lighty in here’

We get a lot of sun in our living room, particularly in the afternoons. On Sundays, after lunch, we usually like to settle down on the sofa and watch a film.

‘It’s very lighty – I’ll lower the blinds.’ José said to me on one of these occasions.

So I replied, ‘Let’s play the “noun-to-adjective” game! I’m going to say a noun, and then you have to turn it into an adjective. Ok let’s start’.

Me: Cloud
José: Cloudy

Me: Silk
José: Silky

Me: Fun
José: Funny

Me: Noise
José: Noisy

Me: Light
José: Lighty

Me: If only languages were that simple!

‘Lighty’ sounds very cute, but unfortunately not correct. It should be ‘bright’, for example: ‘It’s too bright in here with that light on’, or ‘the TV screen is very bright’.

Adjectives don’t seem to follow any rules, do they?

When learning to speak a language, if you don’t know how to say something, I think it’s ok to experiment or make a guess. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t – and if you do get it wrong, you won’t sound bad – you’ll probably just sound cute.

‘That’s the life!’

In life, we have to accept that things go wrong all the time. This is especially true when learning a language.

José’s version of ‘that’s life’ is the much cuter-sounding ‘that’s the life’, and that’s fine with me!

Gabrielle and José