{travel tip} Don't be an Obnoxious American

Wednesday, December 5, 2012 | Stamp in My Passport||

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

My goal is to travel the world.
And not be one of those obnoxious Americans
who only knows English and refuses
to at least attempt to learn the native tongue.

But, I also don't want to spend a lot of money
in my attempts to become bilingual,
because lets face it, high school Spanish did nothing for any of us. 
And unfortunately the only French I learned while studying in Paris was
all of the different menu items 
and how to order crepes of every variety. 
{I thought that was the most important vocab to learn, and I stick by my decision}

That's where Duolingo comes in.
It is a free website {and now iPhone app}
that turns language learning into a game. 
Each lesson you start out with three hearts/lives 
and if they run out by the end of the lesson
then the owl mascot cries and you have to start over. 




Now that there is an app, it's pretty much all I 
do while laying on the couch watching tv and not studying. 
But at least I'm being productive, right?

Currently they have French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

Do you have any embarassing language confusion/misinterpretation stories?

3 comments:

Jelli said...

I have an embarrassing story, yes. I had a boyfriend from a Spanish speaking country that I met while studying abroad. When I was planning to fly over to visit him, he asked me to bring a gift for his mom, which I thought he'd said was pretty panties. Odd, yes, but I did it. Arriving at his house and giving the package to his mother, I could see she was a little confused, but graciously accepted the Victoria's Secret gift nevertheless. Yoga pants. That had been her request. Oops!

Stamp in My Passport said...

That's hilarious! I hope the rest of your visit went well. Sometimes it's best just to get all of the awkwardness out in the open and break the ice. Giving your boyfriend's mom pretty panties would definitely be the way to do that.

Nicole Marie said...

totally trying this!