Language Lessons

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The ketchup dance

One Friday the PE teacher was gone at a school sporting event. Since there was no sub, the fifth graders basically had a really long recess. While the boys played futbol, a girl brought out her cd player. What happens when you give Colombian kids free time outside? Futbol and dancing, of course!
I was hanging out by the dancing girls when a salsa song came on. One of my nice students came up to me, “Miss, you know what salsa is? It’s like sauce. You know, like sauce of tomatoes. It’s the dance of ketchup!” I think he was almost as amused as I was!

V for cow

Tuesdays and Thursdays I tutor a second grade boy who lives in my apartment building. One day he was practicing his spelling words with me. He came to a word with a v in it. (I forgot what the word was, but let’s pretend it was everyone.)

Student: “E- V…. V like……. cow.”
Me (trying not to laugh too much): “Yes, V (drawing a V with my finger) V like violin.”

In Spanish b and v sound very similar. It’s a really common spelling mistake to mix up those two letters, so one way to clarify is to say v like vaca. Vaca = cow. Good thing I knew that otherwise I would have been really confused! I love that he translated it to English.