How do you say, ¨How do you say?¨

the night emily was in the Iquitos ER, i was engaged in lively conversation with the nurses, none of whom spoke English any better then I speak Spanish. We talked about school levels, primary, secondary, high school, college and university. Our respective systems are different enough that this occupied us at least one half hour, only to find out later from emily (who was in a different area during this time) that i was kinda close, but not really.

during this conversation i thought i had hit upon something that would help us understand each other better. I remembered the phrase, ¨how do you say¨and began to use this liberally. I would point to or hold up various items; pencil, paper, stapler, even the desk. I could never quite understand their reply, because my ear for spanish is very poor. I learned later that my memory for the correct phrase was equally poor. it turns out i was telling them I was in love with each of these things or those were all my names. I wonder what they thought of me when i told them i was in love with their desk.