Miscellaneous Spanish learning observations

This set of thoughts is so random and miscellaneous, I'm going to try to format them semi randomly, too.

• It didn't take long after I arrived in Panama for the ads that pop up on websites I visit (even on "Fitness Blender") to start appearing in Spanish.

1. One month into being here, I'm starting to dream in Spanish, too.

• A speed bump here is called "una policia muerta" (literal translation: "dead cop").  One of the guys who drives us around tells us that, when he was growing up here, he thought speed bumps were actual grave sites of police officers.  

1. I don't know why I didn't know this before, but I can add an accent to a vowel on my laptop by holding it down for a second, at which point a set of options arises, and then pressing '2'.  It's so much simpler and easier on the brain to press a-[hold]-2 for á than to type option-e a.  This has been a tech-revelation for me akin to learning that I could use command-k to add links to my documents.
2. Linguno is a great way for me to practice verb conjugations.  I really, really need this practice. 

• Chevere.  That's the word here for 'cool, awesome'.  All the chevere kids are using it.

1. In Honduras, you can ask, "¿te ruge el tigre?" (is the tiger roaring at you?) to ask "are you hungry?".  But apparently not so in Panama.  I might start using this anyway, because I find the expression adorable.
2. Bananas are bananos here; they're masculine. Or they're guineos, still masculine.

• I gave a talk at the University of Panama as part of a panel.  The whole thing was in Spanish -- the attendees spoke Spanish; the other panelists spoke Spanish; I was introduced in . . . well you get the idea.  I pretty much understood everything (yay), and I gave my talk in Spanish, occasionally asking other panelists "como se dice 'brick'?".  After the talk, while noshing on some yummy food and chatting with people, one of the audience members said to me (in Spanish), "oh, by the way, it's la torre, not el torre".
  
  Here's why that comment delighted me.  Completely setting aside that "torre" (which means tower) ends in 'e' and looks completely phallic, and yet it's feminine -- completely setting that all aside -- what that remark meant was that my Spanish was apparently good enough that this audience member had remembered ONE mistake I'd made.  It wasn't like I mangled things so much that my errors blurred into a big old "well, you certainly tried hard and don't worry we could understand it."  No, it was, "you obviously care about this and here's one little word you tripped over."  Whoop!  I was completely delighted.  

  

  2ndo. Encuentro de Intercambio de exbecarios Panamá 2024 

  
  

1. I know lots of silly jokes in English, but most don't translate into Spanish.  ("What did the fish say when it swam into the concrete wall?  Dam!"  It's funny, but only in English). I know only two jokes that work in both English and Spanish, and one joke that only works in Spanish.  I need to learn more Spanish-funny jokes.