That's right--I'm learning English. "But Shana, you already speak English! And you are in Spain," you might say. However, because my roommates are from England and Scotland, I have been learning all kinds of fun new English words and phrases and realizing that even though the three of us speak the same language, we really don't speak the same English at all. Here are a few words I've picked up from them so far:
- bolt - Scottish; get out of here, go away, etc.
- busker - English; street musician. Verb: to busk.
- boke/boak* - Scottish; to vomit, or to feel sick. "Total boakfest" or "That gives me the boke."
- knackered - English; tired, exhausted.
- steaming - Scottish; drunk.
- skip - Scottish; dumpster.
- Hank Marvin - Scottish; hungry, or if you're really hungry, you're "Hank Marvin and all his pals."
- fit - English; extremely attractive (person).
*this is my favorite one so far.
There are more obvious ones of course, like lift, flat, dodgy, bin, rubbish, etc, but I don't think those need much explanation. I've also taught them a few that they particularly enjoyed, like "blowing up" in reference to an especially active cell phone, and "book it" for doing something really quickly--we were walking down Gran Vía and when a man ran past us I said, "wow he's really booking it," to much comedic effect.
More to come!