November 23, 2010

Some Skating Phrases


So continuing with the Ice Show emergency here in Panama, I have now been asked to teach skating and help with the public sessions.

Sure - but I've got to do it in Spanish. As Bart Simpson would say - ¡Ay Carumba!

Nothing more humiliating than needing my 7-year old to stand by the boards and tell me how to say skating phrases that pop into my head in Spanish. Thanks, honey.

So I'll save you the trouble of looking for your own translator and write down some of the phrases I've been using in the past few days. (Okay, I know I'm missing some squiggly lines over the "o" and the "a" here and there, but I don't know how to type them.)

Here we go:

Bend you knees - Doble tus rodillas

Don't lean back - No se echo hacia atras

Feet together - pies juntos

Man, am I ... old - ¡Cielos! Soy vieja
... rusty - fuera de practica
... not thin anymore - gorda

Where is the Zamboni? - ¿Donde es el zamboni?

What do you mean there's no zamboni? - ¿La verdad? ¿No es un zamboni?

I am an old showgirl not an engineer. - Soy corista vieja no un ingeniero.

I haven't done a double flip - No he hecho un tiron de doble flip
... a nice flying camel un camello del vuelo buena
... any kind of routine since the first Bush administration. - una programa desde la primera administracion de Bush.

And finally, the last phrase you might need ...

Do I get a discount at the mall for this? - ¿Consigo un descuento en la mall para esto?

2 comments:

Alexandra said...

You don't need to be in Panama to require a dictionary. I once had an adult class with nary an English speaker in sight-- Korean, Japanese, Mexican, and Polish. Somewhere I have cheat sheets for all these!

Ice Charades said...

How did you ever teach a class with all those nationalities? Wow.