Lennydo wrote:
Tman & Chi-Trekker,
I totally agree. When I was able to begin having typical conversations with her after she learned some English I began to see the emptiness in her head. Had I been with her all of the time in CR instead of spending much of my time in the US, perhaps I would have noticed it sooner. Maybe, maybe not.
One observation:
It's hard to notice that a chica's saying stupid stuff when her mouth's full.

Lenny,
I wouldn't totally fault her for what she says with new English skills. Its really hard to communicate intelligently in a new language beyond the basics. Ever wonder what we sound like when we "try" spanish in CR? If they can even understand us, when they make out what we say, I'm certain we sound like total baffoons. I consider my Spanish skills to be reasonable.... meaning:
1. My vocab is easily over 1,000 words
2. I can speak in multiple tenses
3. My grammar sucks, but I make do
4. My pronuncation and gringo accent is horrible
5. I can read the paper (with dictionary) and watch the news in Spanish and pickup 60% of the point.
Listen to these blips:
1. Happy new year... I was yelling "Happy New Butthole" at a party because I couldn't do the letter n with a tilda on top. Sounds like our n with a y.
2. One time I was bored and I said Soy burrito with a harder t sound which means "I'm a little donkey" instead of Estoy Aburrido... which means I'm bored. That got some laughs.
3. Yesterday, I was getting a new stereo installed in my car. I told the guy I wanted to take out all the speakers out of the doors and replace them with tires.
4. One time, I got my verbs confused when I jumped into a taxi. I used the verb tocar, instead of tomar. I essentially told the cabi that I wanted him to "touch" me all the way to San Pedro.

Man... he almost threw me out of the taxi.
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