By Rebecca Sirull, inside columnist

If I went into a café in the United States and simply said to the waiter, “I want a coffee,” I would probably be met with a dirty glare and a sneeze in my cup. But translate the same thing into Spanish, hop across the Atlantic and the waiter won’t even bat an eye. When I arrived in Spain for the semester, one of the first things I realized was that, after 10 years of studying Spanish, I still wasn’t sure how to order something in a restaurant. It seems so simple, but every time I tried to translate “could I have…” or “can you please bring me…,” it felt awkward and out of place.

I soon learned that many, or in fact most, of the phrases that we are so used to saying every day in the US really can’t be translated exactly. Each language includes elements of the country’s culture hidden in even the most simple words and phrases, and that influences how we must express our ideas. While I first felt like I was being incredibly rude when demanding my waiters give me a glass of water, I’ve now realized that the way people order food in Spain is just one indication of a culture that is overall more upfront, forward and blunt.

I was shocked when my host mom started talking about her dad’s death at the dinner table on my second night living here. It seemed like something much too personal to be brought up so casually with someone she hardly knew, and I assumed she must have just felt more comfortable with me than I expected. But then, after talking with friends also living in homestays, I learned that they’d all had similar experiences – grandma’s sick, uncle had to sell his house, neighbor had a miscarriage – all mentioned right alongside the kids’ schedules for the week. The topics that we would skate around and avoid in the US aren’t taboo here, they’re simply another part of life and are addressed as such: directly and unflinchingly.

The same thing happens with the words they use to describe others. Which one are we going to see? The fat one. Who’s coming over? The old one. Descriptions that might be sugarcoated in English with euphemisms like “a little bigger” or “getting up there” are faced head on in Spanish. They describe what they see and feel with no need to add extra words when just one will do. Simple adjectives aren’t laden with sensitivity and political correctness, but rather used where they apply, without offense. Even if you were to apologize for something you said, it wouldn’t come out as easily or naturally as it would in English.

In the States we use “I’m sorry” like a filler sound, holding a place between ideas, thrown out when moving through a crowd or after saying something that pissed off our friends. And there’s no distinction between the “I’m sorry” that really means it and the one that’s simply said because you know you’re supposed to. We use the same words to comfort our crying roommates, heartbroken after being dumped and half-a-pint deep in Cherry Garcia, as we use instinctively after stepping on a stranger’s toes on a crowded subway.

This is not so in Spain. When someone is actually sorry you’ll know it, and not just because they’re the one who brought the Ben and Jerry’s, but because they’ll actually use different words. In high school Spanish class, we all learned the way to say “I’m sorry” is “lo siento” and immediately applied that translation to our American use of “I’m sorry.” But the real meaning of the Spanish phrase is more like “I feel it,” or I feel the sadness that you feel – a little too intense for the guy on the subway.

It seems strange to associate that kind of genuine sympathy and compassion with calling someone fat, but they both come from the same place of honesty. It’s a sincerity that I’ve come to think of as a main characteristic of Spanish culture and one that I see far less frequently in the US, where people have become almost conditioned to take offense at the slightest affront. Even the English words we use to describe this phenomenon, having “no filter,” is seen as a negative trait, but, if you think about it, isn’t it better to receive information that’s unfiltered? In Spain, people don’t water down their thoughts to make them more palatable to the listener. They don’t apologize for saying something that might offend and they’re not afraid to ask for exactly what they want. It’s a culture we could all learn from: a culture of honesty, a culture of truth.

-Rebecca Sirull can be reached at [email protected]

Photo by Rebecca Sirull