Bilingual Pub Quiz - the Ultimate Relationship Test

The pain in the ass that is learning a new language


Let's just be honest, friends. That's what it is (at least for me), a pain in the ass. El dolor en el culo ("pain in the ass" in Spanish), um pé no saco ("a kick in the balls" in Portuguese), une épine en travers de la gorge ("a thorn through the throat" in French; I love it how the French version manages to be the most poetic one, by the way). And this is coming from someone who teaches languages for a living and speaks a few foreign languages herself to varying degrees of fluency.

Now, somebody at the beginning of their foreign language learning journey might think "But how ever can you say that? You call yourself a language teacher? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! It's so fun and interesting to learn about different languages and cultures, and I'm so incredibly passionate about it!" To that I say (the cynical old witch that I am), just give it time :P

I'm kidding but only a little bit. Of course, it's entirely possible that you are different. You might actually be a person who has no inhibitions about speaking a foreign language and learns a lot in a relatively short time. (You lucky bugger.) Good for you, says I. For me, as established, language learning equals "a kick in the balls" (as a woman, I cannot completely relate to this concept, but it sounds hurtful enough).

That's why, when I first moved to Portugal six years ago, I should have known better than to fall into the trap of forcing myself to learn a language because there was no other choice. Because that is the best way to learn a language, they tell you, to go to the country where they speak it and talk to the locals. And for some reason, I bought into all that, imagining myself sitting at a charming little café with my new local friends (who appeared from who knows where), drinking green wine, eating pasteis de nata, and debating the true essence of Mensagem in my adorably accented Portuguese.

Yeah right! 

In my experience, that non-comfort zone that everybody is raving about is all well and good until you're actually smack dab in the middle of it.

Not that there's anything wrong with stepping out of your comfort zone per se, but must your measures be so drastic? I mean, if your life dream were to become a lion tamer, would you begin your Simba-whispering career by stepping into a meter by meter cage with a pissed-off lioness and her three cubs, or would you start with something a little easier, say, a kitten? And, if in this analogy a language class in a controlled environment is the kitten and talking to locals is the lioness with three cubs, then surely there's something between the two, like a lynx? 

Said lynx came to my life after almost two years of living in Portugal in the form of something called Portuguese-English language exchange, an event where locals and expats met to practice both English and Portuguese. There were a lot of authentic conversations with native and non-native speakers over a drink, people who helped you with your language skills and whom you helped with theirs, and fun was had by all.

Then when my fiancé and I arrived in Belgium a few years ago, we tried to find a similar event (French-English language exchange) in our hometown to facilitate our integration. And because we couldn't find one, we organized one (okay, that sounded a lot simpler than it was).

However, after a few months of regular language exchange events every two weeks, we decided it was time to kick it up a notch.

Kicking it up a notch and all the reasons why you shouldn't

As part of our language exchange, we started to organize bilingual pub quizzes, which are normal pub quizzes except that 50 percent of the questions are in another language. In our case, the two languages were, naturally, English and French.

At first we thought, hmm, organizing a bilingual quiz for an international audience with a wide age range, what could go wrong, eh? Turns out, a lot. First of all, the international aspect: For example, for quiz number 3, we asked a question about Mortal Kombat. Afterwards, we heard that Mortal Kombat had been (and still is) banned in Germany, where at least a few of our quiz-goers were from, so they could have had no way of knowing what we were talking about. Also, the age range: On one occasion, we asked a question about Goldie Hawn's daughter, and one of our quiz-goers went, "Who is Goldie Hawn?" (Personally, I think he was just trying to make us feel old.)

But no matter how well we did our homework, one problem still remains - the differences between the quiz-makers, i.e my fiancé and myself (we also have a friend act as the French-speaking co-host and beta reader but he's never the problem - it's just us two). Some of the issues have to do with our different cultural backgrounds (our general knowledge is different because of where we grew up in) but mostly it's about our different opinions on what makes a good quiz question. Everything else (the technical aspect, how many points to give, logistics, and other practical things) is like a trip to Disneyland compared to that.

The Making of the Infamous Quiz

Then how do we make a quiz that we both like if we cannot even agree on the quiz questions? Well, as everything in life, folks, this too comes down to communication. And after a few quizzes (and living together for three years), our communication has evolved. 

My fiancé, for one, has learned to use the so-called hamburger feedback with me. You know, the feedback model where you sandwich your negative feedback between two positive ones to distract your gullible subject. This way you not only have your subject solely remember your kind words and think you're a great person but you'll also have your feedback on record if you ever have to refer to it (you sneaky you).

For example, for quiz number 2, I suggested that we play different Eurovision songs (my non-European friends: if you don't know what Eurovision is, you're missing out on life!) and have people guess what country they are from. So, the following was my fiancé's well-hamburgered response that started with an almost inaudible deep breath and continued like this:

Top bun (the positive start): 

"Honey, it's great that you have ideas."

Meat in between (what he actually thinks): 

"But I don't think this particular idea is good for this particular quiz."

Bottom bun (ending on a positive note): 

"However, I want you to know how much I encourage and value your ideas. Please always feel free to present them. Maybe one day one of them will actually be... you know... *cough* good."

The downfall of this approach, however, is that I'm the kind of person who will hear nothing after "I don't think this particular idea is good." 

To be fair, though, I'm a lot blunter with him. For instance, for every single quiz we've had, he's suggested a very similar type of a question (it's actually the same question each time but he's trying to present it differently to trick me into accepting it).

Fiancé: Honey, how about this question? What is the probability of-

Me: No.

I mean, I will do everything for (my) love, but I won't do that. And, to be clear, by "that," (watch and learn how to be unambiguous, Meatloaf) I mean probability theory.

Somewhere between quiz 1 and 2, and after a while of twisting each other's arms and either gently (fiancé) or less gently (me) wet-blanketting each other's ideas, we reached a point where we figured we needed a less tiring method of decision-making. And the naive little sheep that we are, we thought that the solution would be to establish a sort of a veto system, which meant that each of us could use a specific number of vetos if there was a question we strongly felt should not be in the quiz (hahaa, ridiculous!). Despite the good (naive) intentions, this ended up bringing out the stubborn side of both of us. And after a while of tricking each other out of vetos, bluffing and calling each other's bluff, we realized that these vetos could end up ruining our quiz - and, in time, our lives in general.

We eventually proceeded to replace the veto system with the so-called martyr act. That is when one person suggests something, and the other person a) gives a heavy sigh and b) says something along the lines of, "Well, honey, I just want you to be happy. I wouldn't add that question if I were you because it's crap, but if it means that much to you, then go ahead and add it, in all its crappiness, and I guess in time I will learn to see the less crappy qualities of it - of which there are not many -, because you love it and I love you," which often backfires because the first person sees right through the guilt-trip act and just goes, "Great! Added!"

So. Where does our quiz-making evolution stand today? As I'm writing this, we are just a couple of days away from our next quiz and we still have two questions to come up with. My fiancé just sent me a message:

So, there you have it - the latest evolution. As you can see, we are still twisting arms. Which actually, if I'm honest with you, usually turns out to be completely unnecessary. For whatever reason, the quiz gods seem to like us and we somehow always end up with a quiz we both as well as our audience loves. So much so, actually, that after each quiz, all the arm-twisting is but a distant memory and we both tell each other (and ourselves) the same thing - we need to do this again soon! ;)

Happy Einsteining to all you quiz-goers!!

Virtually Yours

From Escaping Rooms to Escaping Reality

Here's a fun fact about me: other than my loved ones, writing, occasional drawing, and food, I love love love puzzles, riddles, and mysteries. I survived my preteen years through the strength of the genius that is Agatha Christie (I was very jealous when my fiancé figured out the ending of Murder on the Orient Express less than half way into the 2017 movie, by the way), I play 2048 and do sudokus way more than I should, and these days I organize a bilingual pub quiz with two other people (a blog post coming about that soon!). I've also tried to talk my fiancé into hosting a murder mystery party at our place, but so far, he hasn't exactly given me the green light (nor a yellow light).

This is why, when I first heard about the existence of the so-called escape rooms a few years ago, I was (almost) as excited as Marvelites at the premier of Infinity War. Now, if you don't know what an escape room is, the innocent explanation, in short, is that it's a physical adventure game, where they lock you and your team of friends in a room which you need to escape within a certain time limit (normally an hour) by finding (and solving) different clues. There’s usually a theme, like a haunted house, a rescue mission, a conspiracy theory, etc. Basically, it’s a lot of padlocks, flashlights, secret rooms, codes, riddles, and all that fun geeky Sherlocky stuff.

The less innocent explanation, however, (and this is my theory) is that it's a psychological experiment. Your friends will show their true colors.

Your mind will go from paranoid...

...to insane.

In some cases, after a while in a little room with a couple more oxygen-sucking beings (a.k.a your friends), your claustrophobia will kick in.

In other cases, you'll regress to a homo not-so-sapiens sapiens, who will either figuratively or literally try to fit an obviously square peg into an obviously round hole.

After the time’s up (or after you've found your way out), you will, however, snap back to your normal self, and you and your friends can all laugh about the experience, take selfies wearing funny hats and holding magnifying glasses and fake pipes, have a drink and blame your possible failure to beat the clock on the language barrier (this one only works if you're an expat, though).

As you can imagine, I love escape rooms but, not too long ago, I heard about something even cooler - a virtual reality room! A friend of mine mentioned that she had tried that in the city of Brussels, which is only an hour of a train ride away from our current home town. Now, I had never done virtual reality before but I immediately knew for whom it would be the perfect birthday gift (in the spirit of this post, let's just say that the right answer kind of rhymes with 'Beyoncé' but is not Jay-Z). So, I asked my friend for the website and a plan started developing in my mind. 

T minus 730 hours

The website was that of Virtual Room Brussels. According to it, there'd been an unfortunate "temporal rift" in the past, which threatened to wipe out the whole human race (oops). Apparently, myself and my team were the only ones who could rescue our fellow humans by saving the so-called Alpha team, thus making us "humanity's last hope." Now, I don't know about you but I happen to take being humanity's last hope pretty seriously. Preparation was required.

I asked two of our friends, who I knew would be up to the task, if they'd be interested in celebrating my fiancé's birthday by doing VR - they were. I then sent a message to VR Brussels asking if we could do the whole humanity-saving in English since we're an international group (a Finn, a Mexican, an Argentinian, and a Chilean) - they said 'yes.'

Through this whole time I did my best to keep this experience a secret from my fiancé. For example, when writing down times and dates about the VR on my sticky notes, I used the code lautriv ytilaer in case he'd happened to have peered over my shoulder. (I mean, yes, it's an easy code to figure out but my fiancé would just have thought that I was writing something in Finnish, so it seemed like a pretty safe way to go).

T minus 48 hours

Two days before the actual date, I went to Brussels to check how to get to the right location (yes, I’m so that person). To my fiancé I told that I needed to go to Brussels for work. “I have this training thing,” I said innocently, and he didn’t ask for details, which was a bummer because I had come up with one hell of a cover story.

To be fair, my birthday-related cover stories have gotten better over the years. For example, our first year together I was planning a surprise party for my fiancé and I tried to get his friend’s contact information so that I could ask him to join. I couldn’t find said friend on Facebook so I had to make up a cover story as to why I needed my fiancé to give me this friend's number:

Me: Hey. A friend of mine is interested in going to Argentina and she has some questions. Maybe you could give me Alex’s phone number so that I can give it to her?

Fiancé: Why would Alex know anything about Argentina?

Me: Because he’s from Argentina... Right?

Fiancé: He’s from Spain.

(A pause)

Me: But he has family in Argentina?

Fiancé: Nope. As far as I know, he’s never been to Argentina in his entire life.

(A pause to quickly think of an emergency cover story)

Me: Oh, who am I trying to kid? Obviously my friend is romantically interested in Alex. But she’s too shy to say it directly. That’s why she’s really asking for his number.

Fiancé: Alex is in a relationship.

Me: Oh, for God’s sake, will you just give me that freaking number already?

T minus zero

Two days after checking out the place, I took my unsuspecting fiancé to Brussels. I only told him that I had a surprise for him, no details. My downfall, however, is that I'm completely unable to keep my cool. Even though I didn't spoil the surprise, all the way to Brussels (and maybe already two weeks prior) I kept saying stuff like, "Are you nervous? I think I would be nervous if I were you," and "Oh, I'm getting so nervous. What if this doesn't go well? What if something goes horribly wrong?" and "How are you doing? Are you getting nervous already? Don't be nervous. I know I'm nervous but you shouldn't have to be nervous, too," until by the end my poor fiancé was - yes, you guessed it - nervous. I mean, that's one way to spend your birthday, I suppose, in fear of what your crazy significant other has planned for you, but it's not necessarily the ideal way to go.

We met our friends a few minutes before the start of the experience. We were under strict instructions not to enter the building before it was time (for various reasons). None of us had ever done VR before. I cannot say much about the experience so as not to spoil it for those of you who might want to try it, but we basically had a little briefing, then each of us went to our own little black room, put on our headsets that descended from the skies (the ceiling), and suddenly, even though we were in different rooms physically, virtually, we were in the same room (this will make so much more sense when you actually experience it yourself). We were also given two controllers, which would be used to grab things in the virtual world.  

After we were all set, a guy came to close the curtain that separated my room from the corridor and was about to leave when he suddenly turned on his heels like Lieutenant Columbo and was like, “Oh, one more thing. I forgot to tell you this before, but since you guys are now wearing these headsets, your brains are connected to this machine, which means that if you die in this game, you die in real life. Oh yeah, and taking the headsets off is no longer an option. Anyway, enjoy, bye." 

Okay, no, that didn't happen, but I was kind of waiting for it to. 😉 

As I said, I cannot divulge much about the content of the experience, but I can say that, at least for me (a non-gamer), it was really cool. The graphics were realistic and I felt completely transported to the different world(s). At first, I wasn't sure I would be able to get used to the controllers, but in the end, using them was kind of instinctive. Of course, some of the skills I had in virtual reality, I totally lack in real life. I mean, if my throwing hand had been that great in high school, I wouldn't have the gym class related traumas I have today.  The only downside I can think of is that it got pretty warm in the room and especially under that headset, but it might have been because it was a very warm day in Brussels. (By the way, Virtual Room Brussels is not paying lil' ol’ me anything for this free exposure – I just really had a great time!)

Anyway, in the end, we managed to save humanity (you’re welcome). And after humanity was saved, we did the only thing that a humanity saving team in that situation would do – took a selfie.

Thank you Virtual Room for a fun experience!