A few years ago I remember asking a couple different Spanish people how to say “go with the flow” in Spanish. They’d ask, “well what does that mean?” And I told them that it kind of meant to relax, to stay cool and not get uptight about stuff all rolled into one phrase. Well, you can imagine that for some people that explanation just confused them even more. Several people told me just to say “relajarse” or “tranquilo” or “tranquilizarse” which all mean to relax or to calm down, but that wasn’t really the precise meaning I was going for.

Then one day, totally out of the blue, one of my Spanish co-workers said “dejate llevar” to a student who was very nervous and kept tensing up during a group activity, and I was like Yes! That’s the phrase I’ve been looking for! So it popped up when I wasn’t even looking for it.

By the way, I like your glass of wine theory and have put it into practice a few times myself!

I’m really enjoying the blog and podcasts – very well done and helpful for someone who is trying to learn Spanish. This “Spanish learner’s manifesto” is especially insightful – today in my Spanish class, it seemed like we students were so busy trying not to be wrong, that it got in the way of our learning. I think that there’s a time – even during a difficult grammar lesson – that you need to sit back and relax and trust that you can’t force it right now and that it might come to you later.

I have a theory that we could all speak a second language much better after drinking one glass of wine. Before the first glass, we’re nervous about making fools of ourselves and after two or three, some of us even have trouble with our own language!