I Thought I Knew What It Meant (Part II)

A Life Sentence

Another expression which gave me a few problems is that to do with a life prison sentence. Don’t worry though, I don’t have any funny stories about being banged up but I wanted to explain something about the UK justice system during my Spanish classes, if I remember rightly. I tried translating it directly to sentencia de vida but no one seemed to really get the idea. After a bit of investigation I discovered that cadena perpetua is the most commonly used phrase. I like this because it translates to perpetual chain in my head and that makes it seem like someone tied to the same chain gang for the rest of his life. You could also say sentencia de por vida, which sounds awfully like what I said but seems to get much better results.

My Name

The moment when I realised that the issue was more to do with my pronunciation than my knowledge came when I couldn’t get anyone to understand my name. I was trying to buy a ticket for the bus and they simply couldn’t understand me when I said Robert. Nothing in my Spanish courses had prepared me for this. In the end I spelled it out letter by letter and still had to settle for a ticket in the name of “Valter”. I quite enjoyed being Valter for a while actually.