‘Did it help you learn though?’: Woman sets her phone to Spanish to learn the language, but one mistake almost cost her her car

Learning a language is tough, and sometimes you’ve got to throw yourself into the deep end; try reading a book in that language or have a conversation with a native speaker and see how well you fare. But you could set your phone to the desired language and just hope you pick it up.

So this was Syd’s interesting technique to learn Spanish, which she shared with thousands of people on TikTok, and I actually think she’s onto something. It’s sort of a brute force way to make yourself read Spanish every day, and in theory, it would put you in sink-or-swim situations where you’d have to understand what you’re reading, or else. It’s cutthroat, is what it is — I feel like this is how Batman would teach himself a language, and that’s pretty cool.

Okay, it’s definitely not perfect; as it turns out, those situations where you either sink or swim can have some pretty dire consequences, so be prepared for those. This is TikTok, after all; the place for people who get into wacky and awkward predicaments to share their embarrassment for our enjoyment. In Syd’s case, she almost lost her car after not understanding what her phone was asking her for. When parking in a paid garage, she was asked for her license plate number, and I feel like “enter your license plate” isn’t exactly a common phrase you hear in Spanish, so it makes sense that she had no idea what was being asked.

Regardless, Syd took a wild stab in the dark, and entered the make of her car, instead. Upon returning to the garage, she was met by the parking attendant, who asked her if she was the one who put “Ford.”

Well, it seems that the attendant is clearly fluent in Spanish, judging by his response, so Syd is in good hands. Luckily, it didn’t lead to the car being taken away, although I am curious to know whether this method has actually been effective, and whether she still has her phone set to Spanish. To be fair, the comments are filled with people who have tried doing the same thing before, with varying degrees of success.

I put my phone in French 3 years ago for the same reason! I’ve learned it’s best to keep the apps that deal with Real Life and money in English 💕

No i did the same thing and instead of making me learn Spanish it just makes me want to throw my phone at the wall BECAUSE WHAT ARE YOU SAYING

I put my phone in Dutch bc drunk me thought it was hilarious and now I’m battling with my Dutch phone everyday

Judging by most of these experiences, it looks like changing the language on your phone really isn’t the best way to learn a language. I think I’ll just take my chances with Duolingo, although I wouldn’t put it past that damn green owl to steal my car just for losing my streak.