To keep things lighthearted, today I bring you a taxi conversation from yesterday evenining - the subte (tube/subway) had totally broken and I was running late. Unfortunately, there was a lot of traffic even though we were ages away from the city centre.
My spanish is improving - definitely enough to speak freely enough with a taxi driver, or so I thought. I asked him how far away we were, and he proceeded to give me a sat-nav style description (but imagine setting the accent on the machine to 'cross between old man spanish/italian') ''we're going to go right until the right, then right until we turn left, then right and right until we arrive''.The word for 'right' in Castellano (argentinian spanish) is 'derecho' - it also works for rights and even can mean the law. Anyway, to me these directions made no sense - sounded pretty much like a massive U turn. So I contintued questioning him until I realised (with some help from WordReference when i got back)- the word for 'right' in Castellano is also the word for 'straight on'.
What a stupid, stupid system. They already have a phrase for straight on (todo recto), how does it POSSIBLY make any sense for these two words to by the same. Screw it, may aswell make 'left' the same - continuity is good, right?
Or did i mean have I got that straight? Either way, taking/giving directions has taken on new meaning.
Some people...
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