Spanish Immersion Games

OMG lol the law of unintended consequences just attacked me ;-P   But I won!   I'm not sure how, but I did.

Let me back up...   February is Spanish immersion month, to be followed by boot camp the first week of March (that week chosen solely because that's the week I have off my MBA classes).  So to help with this, I changed both my FB and my phone to Spanish.

Okay so FB isn't too big a challenge.  Primarily because I'm more familiar with the platform than I'd like to admit so the words don't really matter.  I find it moderately amusing when I have to do a double-think about what it's telling me, and now when it translates somebody's post from another language it changes it to Spanish instead of English which alternates between amusing and frustrating.  But overall, neither my ability to use the app nor my real life are impacted by this cause, well, social media.  I can turn it off with zero impact to my day.

One of the first double takes was figuring out which alerts are actually comments...
Hint - none of these ;-P

Okay so that's all well and good.  It'll give me a tiny bit more exposure to Spanish with the translating of other people's comments, but otherwise...   Pretty minimal.

Now, my phone...   I had kinda thought I'd change some labels, the instructions/settings/etc would be in Spanish.  

This is honestly about what I expected.
The top two apps don't even have a Spanish option...

All good, right?   Yeah - except INSIDE every app changes too!   The saddest is bitmoji...  Since none of my friends speak Spanish, I can't use that at all anymore :(   

Except dinos -- they're the same in any language :)

I found the setting to switch it back to English and was super excited but all it did was make it so I can search for bitmoji's in English (sort of - very limited), but all the ones it gives me are still in Spanish.  So my bitmoji usage may be limited for a while.  Or you may just get them in Spanish instead.  May the odds be ever in your favour.

My work apps...   Yup - all Spanish!
Again, I'm pretty familiar with their functionality,
so not a big deal, but definitely did a double take!

But then there's my fitbit, which I've been relying heavily on to help meet my movement goals....  (she types literally as it buzzes to say I need to go get steps).   Pause.  *insert 250 steps* Okay, I'm back.   So by this point I had accepted the app would be in Spanish - somehow I'm still surprised by it every time?  Clearly what few learning skills I have have been thoroughly demolished by Finance - but had generally got the concept into my head.  What I didn't expect is that my watch is ALSO in Spanish now.  lol because of course the watch and the phone are synced.

Honestly though - the one that's driving me crazy - is everywhere there's a time, instead of saying am or pm it's a. m. or p. m. -- too many dots and WAY too much space.  I literally cringe every time I see it.  lol apparently it really is the little things in life?

Okay - but none of this has anything really relevant to the intro?  Remember that... Waaaaayyyyy back?  Right.  So my car's hands-free system is, uh, less than useful.  I mean, it theoretically exists, but it essentially never works.   Since I do occasionally need to send or receive phone calls while driving, I now have Alexa in my car.  She manages calls for me, adds random things I think of to my to do list, and plays music when I'm tired of my playlist.  All good.   So I, being a dedicated immersion student, was listening to a Spanish podcast (only Duolingo - I can't follow normal speed Spanish yet) while going for groceries, when I decided I needed to call C.  I stopped the podcast (which I wouldn't normally do) before asking Alexa to place the call...

And was answered in rapid-fire Spanish.  Wtf?!?  So first I did a quick glance at my dash, thinking I'd somehow reactivated the podcast (remember, slow learner...) - but no.  And that didn't make sense anyways as it definitely wasn't the podcast voice or tone.   hmmmm.  Wait.  Alexa is glowing?

And slowly the light dawns...  While house Alexa still cheerfully speaks English, car Alexa is powered by my phone.  She now speaks Spanish.   "Call Chris" shouldn't have been hard to come up with, but it did take me a second.  And amazingly - I was even nervous of speaking in Spanish alone to a computer?!?!   I mean, I really need to get over that.  So she babbled rapid-fire Spanish back at me, I missed 90% of it, but it ended with Chris' name and and uptone, so I took it to mean "do you want me to call Chris?" which she generally confirms in English.   Uh "Si?"  lol - it definitely came out as a question.  But it must've been the right answer, cause it worked.   Win!   So then I decided to ask Alexa for music, but since I couldn't remember the word for "play" in the context of music -- I just knew it wasn't the same as play a game and that was the word stuck in my head -- I just went with "music please" and hoped my accent wasn't so atrocious she couldn't understand.  lol but she got it, and went with my favourites list.  So it all worked out.

But yeah - that was definitely the most immersion I've ever had without leaving the country.  So I know how to override it now, but I'm not going to because...  Well...  That's kinda the whole point.  The only thing that's kinda disappointing is with the stay at home order, I never drive, so I won't actually get to talk to her much.