Language Misunderstandings

I came to this country twenty-eight years ago with my parents, my brother and four sisters. We came from Colombia, South America to my uncle’s house. They had lived in Pennsylvania for fifteen years, and I noticed that my younger cousins didn’t speak much Spanish at home and we did not speak English at all. In my country we take English as a second language, and we just learn to say hello, how are you, thank you; just the basics. So we were kind of worried.

My sisters started to go to school, and learned English very fast. I went with my parents to a school for adults to learn the language. There were people from so many countries, so many languages and cultures, it was amazing. We had never experience that before. It was good to know that we were not the only ones having a hard time with the language and adjusting to this country. By the way it’s really hard to get used to this country, but it’s worth it, I love it. I thank my uncle and his family for the great opportunity they gave us to come here.

One month later I started working at a factory because I needed to help my parents so we could start a new life and become independent. At the factory I met a lot of people from everywhere, but especially from Puerto Rico. One day I said something to my coworker from Puerto Rico. I don’t remember what, all I know is that she started laughing and I was wondering why. Then she said that I had said something that to them had a bad meaning. From that day on I blocked that word from my vocabulary. After that I was very careful when I was talking, but of course it kept happening.

Now that I have kids and my husband is from Puerto Rico. It is hard sometimes to teach them about the differences in cultures because even though we are both Hispanic we both come from different backgrounds. So what my children have now is a mix of both cultures.

Not so long ago I met somebody from Cuba, she is my neighbor. I was talking to her and we both were talking about a fruit tree, but the word that we use for that tree in my country means something totally different to her. So I went and show her the tree, and we both started laughing about it, because what we call this fruit tree means something that we should not say. Language and culture come together and interact with each other. That is one of the reasons why computers will never replace the work of a human translator. Also, we should not assume that because somebody speaks two languages they are the right person to translate a document that is targeted to another culture, for example. That’s why whenever somebody needs a legal document in Spanish or any other kind of project like advertisement, translation of websites, brochures, etc. I always recommend them to get a professional translator.

Yolanda Ramos