How kids help you learn a language, and how my Spanish got mistaken for Quechua

How a tire shop turned into a language lesson#

Driving along the coast yesterday, I realize one of my tires is toast. It's Sunday, when everything's usually locked up tight, but I get lucky — there's a garage with a mechanic right off the highway.

Kids are the best language teachers#

While the mechanic pulls off the wheel and digs out the nail, I get to chatting with his ten-year-old son, Danilo. Kids really are the best tutors for a language. It never occurs to them that someone might not understand — so they rattle away at full speed, slang and all.

Geography, iPhones, and countries nobody's heard of#

I steer the conversation away from how much my iPhone cost and onto school and geography: Danilo likes school, though he has no idea where this exotic country called Russia is.
"You're going to Chile — is the water blue there too, are there beaches?"
"Yep."

The moment of truth — my Spanish gets mistaken for Quechua#

About 10 minutes in, though, the kid figures something out:
"You don't understand everything in Spanish. Is your native language Quechua?"

Quechua is spoken by Peru's indigenous highland population — around 13 million speakers. I could not, for the life of me, explain what Russian is, or the concept of "another language" in general 😂

My first words in Quechua — courtesy of the local kids#

The older kids taught me how to say hello:
Ñuqa sutiy Max — my name is Max.

So what have you learned from kids?#

Or what would you like to teach them yourself?