Learning a new language

You know one of the funniest things when you are learning a new language? When you think you understood what someone is asking, but actually did not!

Before coming to Canada, I studied English in Brazil a lifetime! I went to school and I was crazy for Metallica, Bon Jovi so it helped me a lot cause I translated songs, memorized what they were speaking on TV Shows and everything.

But, I had never been in a country that has English as a first language. Before Toronto, I went to Houston, Texas. When I arrived there I realized that all those years studying English were not enough for me to understand the Texans. I had to start all over again!

One day, I went to an ice cream shop with a friend from Mississipi (I was still trying to understand his English also), I chose my cone, the flavor of my ice cream and the attendant asked: “How many scoops?”. Me, so smart, didn’t know the meaning of the word “scoops”, so thought that were the candies that you put on top of ice cream, had already chosen everything what was she asking, God? So I answered: “None, thank you”. 

Everybody at the store looking at me, and my friend so polite as he was, realized that I had not understood what she asked and said: “You will not have ice cream? Gonna eat the cone only?”. That was when I found out that “scoop” is the “ball of ice cream” (as we call in Portuguese) and I had just said that I didn’t want any scoop. Everyone laughed in my face that day… but, it was worth. I’ll never forget this word!