Coffee or your life!

Every holiday maker and non native speaker has problems when trying to communicate in Spain; but, in a recent breakfast with a client one of the funniest miss understandings that i have seen in the last 10 years in Spain came over a simple breakfast.

Walking in with my client we sat down and i always encourage them to order breakfast to practice, on this occasion i ordered then came the turn of my client who ordered a "cafe con leche y media de pan y tomato" trying his best in a Spanish accent the Tomato part of the order sounded like "Te mato". Not a good thing to say if on Holiday or worse still as a resident. In Spanish Tomato is "Tomate" and "Te mato" means i will kill you.

So my client had just ordered a coffee and toast and then said "I will kill you!" The waiter said "NO you te mato a te" which means no I will kill you./p>

My client in his wisdom, then copied him, and said "Si yo te mato" yes i will kill you!!! this went on until i couldn't take any more and had to explain to my client who was very embarrassed that he had just threatened death on the waiter!!

Spain is a friendly place but you can't go around telling waiters you're going to kill them... Anyway... Smiles all round but just check the phrase book before ordering or your holiday breakfast of "pan con tomate" may turn into something a little more dramatic and fatal.