Dominican Housewife Chronicles - What he says vs what he means

This is one of our most recent pictures together while at the beach.  My husband doesn't like the beach.  I honestly have no idea how you can live on this beautiful island and not love the beach but anyway I love when he makes the sacrifice for me.  It's even better when it's his suggestion.

Okay everyone this post is about how my husband communicates with me.  If you've been following my blog you know that my husband is Dominican and speaks Spanish and I'm American and I speak English.  I've been spending a lot of time here in the Dominican Republic over the past year so I'm learning Spanish enough to hold a simple conversation.  My husband is learning but not as fast as me.  He and I have developed a way of communicating that works for us, sometimes better than others but we usually figure it out.  Some of the examples I'm going to share with you today really don't have much to do with the difference between Spanish and English but sometimes the language barrier does play into our miscommunication.  For those of you who don't know Spanish at all this will be somewhat of a Spanish lesson for you.

The first word is Ahora - This means now in English.
When my husband says Ahora it can mean different things depending on the activity.  For example if it's something I want then Ahora means in the very near future.  If it's something he wants then ahora actually means that he's known about it for several days but didn't tell me about it until just now and AHORA means I was supposed to be ready 10 minutes ago.  You can imagine how annoying this is right?  I'm learning though.  He's a creature of habit so I watch him now and I can tell when there's going to be an AHORA event coming that I need to be prepared for.  This usually happens when he has a baseball game.  I've learned which days the games typically occur on so I can be prepared and he's not always being a total jerk it's just sometimes hes waiting to decide if he's going or not.  He plays on so many different teams.

Next let's discuss the word Hoy.  This means today in English.
When my husband says Hoy it actually most of the time means today but it can also just mean, yeah one day that might happen but not ahora LOL.  If I ask him to do something or go somewhere if I get the Si, hoy response it's a good thing.

Manana - This means tomorrow in English.
When my husband says it it means not now (ahora) it might happen tomorrow if I actually remember it or feel like it but it is something I'm somewhat interested in.

Next up is the phrase Mas Tarde - This means later in English.
When my husband says Mas Tarde it actually means I'm really not interested in that at all so I'm going to say mas tarde and hope that you forget about it or maybe I can talk  you out of it cause it's just not going to happen.  So in my house mas tarde means later or never.  It took me awhile to catch on to this one but I finally figured it out so when I hear the mas tarde response I press for a hoy or manana instead.  The mas tarde isn't my friend LOL.

Temprano - This means early in English.
When my husband uses this word for him it's going to happen soon, but for me when he says temprano he's really asking me why I'm not finished yet with whatever I'm doing LOL.

This next one is my favorite.  No cocinar hoy - This means do not cook today.  My husband has a habit of telling me this on Sunday's.  He says "No cocinar hoy, tu trankilla in casa hoy."  Basically you don't cook for me today you relax in the house today.  What he means is I don't want you to spend a lot of time in the kitchen today cooking a big meal BUT when I'm hungry later (mas tarde) I want you to be able to whip something up quick.  So the first time this happened I wasn't prepared and I was mad as a hornet.  I demanded an explanation and he told me that me warming up the leftovers or making a quick sandwich wasn't considered cooking which I guess is true.  Like I said before I'm learning and I'm hip to his little no cocinar hoy trick and I'm ready every time.  In fact it's become somewhat of a joke between us.  Kinda like when I ask him if he wants popcorn while we watch TV at night and he says no.  I always fix enough for us both because I learned a long time ago that his hand is going to be in the bowl and he usually eats more than half of the bowl.

This next word has been the source of major challenges between my husband and I especially while in the car.  The Spanish word derecho means two things, to go straight and to turn right.  You can imagine how nerve racking this can be while driving in an unfamiliar place getting directions from someone who only speaks Spanish.  Fortunately I've learned my way around this city now and my husband does most of the driving when we are out together.

When it matters the most he says what he means like when he says Te amo mucho (I love you a lot) or when he says in English you're beautiful :-)