Day 103: Praise That Makes Him Nervous
At a software company in Guadalajara, Joaquín (A), a young developer, confides in his colleague Miranda (B), who works on the same team.
How to study this lesson 3 steps
- Read the situation under the title. It says who is talking and how they know each other, which decides how politely they speak.
- Read the dialogue line by line with its translation, until every line makes sense. Point at (or tap) a Spanish word to see what it means.
- Spend at least 30 minutes listening to native Spanish, for example from the Resources page. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it yet.
Dialogue
Audio recordings are on the way. For now, each lesson is the dialogue with its English translation.
Keys: E hide English · ← → previous / next day · point at a word to see its meaning
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A
¿Te cuento algo raro? Cuanto más me felicita el jefe, más siento que un día me van a descubrir.
Can I tell you something weird? The more the boss praises me, the more I feel that one day they're going to find me out.
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B
¿Descubrir qué? Si tu módulo de pagos salió a producción sin un solo bug.
Find out what? Your payments module went live without a single bug.
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A
Pues que fue suerte. Ayer me puso de ejemplo en la junta, lo cual me quitó el sueño.
That it was luck. Yesterday he held me up as an example in the meeting, which kept me awake all night.
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B
¿Un elogio te quitó el sueño? Eso no es modestia, Joaquín: se llama síndrome del impostor.
A bit of praise kept you awake? That's not modesty, Joaquín: it's called impostor syndrome.
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A
Suena a diagnóstico de internet. Yo solo sé que no merezco ni la mitad de esos elogios.
Sounds like an internet diagnosis. All I know is that I don't deserve half that praise.
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B
Yo decía lo mismo cuando me ascendieron: juraba que la compañera cuyo puesto heredé lo merecía más que yo.
I said the same when I got promoted: I was sure the colleague whose job I took over deserved it more than me.
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A
¿Tú? Pero si eres la primera a la que buscamos cuando se cae el servidor.
You? But you're the first person we go to when the server goes down.
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B
Y aun así, cada elogio me daba ansiedad. Me ayudó anotar mis logros con fecha, para ganarle las discusiones a mi cabeza.
And even so, every bit of praise made me anxious. What helped was writing down my achievements with dates, to win the arguments with my own head.
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A
O sea que no soy un fraude, sino uno más del club. Mi lista empieza con el módulo de pagos.
So I'm not a fraud, just another member of the club. My list starts with the payments module.
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