Kaki — the Fruit that Made Me Realize I CAN Speak Spanish 🇪🇸

The moment when I felt I could truly speak Spanish, wasn't when I received my Cervantes B2 diploma or good feedback from my Spanish teacher. 

It was a moment when I needed to defend myself and stand for my rights.

🍇🍊It was a market day, and I went to my favourite frutería in Sevilla, where the owners treated me well and always gave me good-quality fruits. Unfortunately, on that day it was closed. It was a market where customers cannot pick the fruit, and the vendor puts in what you ask for. So I approached a guy, whose fruits were nice looking but unfortunately his behaviour wasn't the same.

I bought the usual and among them kakis. He wrapped them in paper and I was good to go. But when I got home and unpacked them, I saw that all kakis were broken - they were way too ripe to sell. 

😡 I got so angry because I felt that he had treated me like a typical guiri, a tourist who likely doesn't come back and therefore can get whatever. I decided to go back, rehearsing sentences in Spanish I was about to tell him.

I walked straight back to his booth and said that I got home and these fruits were already broken. But he told me that I did that. I said that I live across the street and it's impossible, I wasn't playing football with them ⚽️ meanwhile. Then he claimed that in Spain people eat them like that. I said that I've been living here for 2 years and you definitely don't eat them like that.

Most likely I was all red in my face, but I said: "I want my money back!"

The money I got back was "nothing", maybe two-three euros but the confidence boost I got - that I can stand for my rights in a foreign language, wow, that was HUGE💪.

👉 "How long does it take to speak x language" is one of the most common questions language teachers hear and expats ask. Here's an answer from my Spanish teacher Ana Reyes Alba, with whom I did an interview.