One of my biggest pet peeves with my English students is when they try to argue with me by saying “but that’s not how it is in Spanish!” As soon as I hear the words “But in Spanish…” I feel my ire rise. Spanish and English are TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. You can’t just translate, word for word, from Spanish to English. I know that sometimes the student just wants to inform me of the difference, but I almost certainly already knew this since my Spanish is better than his English, thankyouverymuch.

I once made the mistake that many of my students are trying to make. My first year of Spanish in high school we were assigned to write a short paragraphy about a famous person. I don’t remember who I chose, but I specifically remember thinking, “This is easy! It’s just translating English words to Spanish.” I got a D on the homework, which was probably one of the worst grades I’ve ever received.

If it were that simple all we would need to speak another language is a dictionary. Unfortunately that’s not the case (or fortunately it IS the case because otherwise I’d be out of a job).