Day 109: The Question That Stumped Dad
At home in Saltillo, Juan Carlos (A) notices his young daughter Amanda (B) watching him, the day after a job interview he came back from unusually quiet.
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
¿Qué tanto me ves, Amanda? Ni que tuviera monos en la cara.
What are you staring at, Amanda? It's not like I've got something on my face.
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B
Es que llegaste muy callado de la entrevista y ni quisiste ver el partido. ¿Te fue mal?
It's just that you came back from the interview really quiet and didn't even want to watch the game. Did it go badly?
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A
Regular. Un ingeniero de cuyo nombre ni me acuerdo me hizo una pregunta que me dejó en blanco.
So-so. An engineer whose name I can't even remember asked me a question that made my mind go blank.
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B
¿Cuál, la de por qué quieres trabajar ahí? Esa ya te la sabes de memoria.
Which one, the one about why you want to work there? You know that one by heart.
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A
Peor: cuántos pares de zapatos se venden en Saltillo al año. Me quedé callado un minuto, lo cual en una entrevista es una eternidad.
Worse: how many pairs of shoes are sold in Saltillo in a year. I went quiet for a minute, which in an interview is an eternity.
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B
¿Y qué hiciste? ¿Te quedaste viendo el techo hasta que te dieron las gracias?
And what did you do? Did you sit staring at the ceiling until they thanked you and showed you out?
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A
No, improvisé: saqué cuentas en voz alta y al final solté un número que ni yo me creí.
No, I improvised: I did the math out loud, and in the end I came out with a number even I didn't believe.
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B
¡Eso querían ver, papá! La maestra dice que en esos problemas se evalúa el procedimiento, no el resultado.
That's what they wanted to see, Dad! My teacher says that in problems like that, it's the method that gets graded, not the answer.
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A
Ahora que lo dices, el ingeniero sí anotaba todo. Aunque no me den el puesto, hoy sí vemos el partido.
Now that you mention it, the engineer did write everything down. Even if I don't get the job, today we're definitely watching the game.
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