Lost In Translation – I Can’t Spell, Apparently

In Latin America I have had to spell my name out many, many times. I can honestly report that not a single time have the ten letters been transcribed correctly by the person on the other side – and that is when they actually try. Often they hand the pen or keyboard over to me to write my name. Why does it always seem to get lost in translation?

When I went to Ingapirca I had to give my name and passport number to enter. Below you can see the results. I removed my passport number, but just above it is my name: Adm Pruv.

I can understand that it can be difficult working with foreign accents and everything, but I can’t understand how they’d miss the “Z” at the end. In Spanish “Z” is pronounced “zeta.” Pretty distinct.

In the past, for important stuff, I spell my name by saying “A como Ana, D como David, A como Ana, M como Miguel” and do the same for my last name. This always works.

It’s just frustrating from my side since I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I know the Spanish letters and I don’t know why I can never communicate them properly. I guess it’s my pinche gringo accent! 🙂