Math: The Universal Language

Every night over dinner, we watch a Spanish game show called “cifras y figuras”. It’s really rather simple. Two players face off at 4 rounds of two simple tasks. The first is the word puzzle game. They pick letters by simply saying “vowel” or “consonant”. Then letters randomly appear. After there are 9 letters, they have 30 seconds to rearrange them and create the longest word possible. With my limited vocabulary, the most I can ever get at that section is 4 or 5 letters – though there have been a few times I’ve gotten 6 or 7! (Tarjeta was the one I was most proud of). The contestants usually get around 7.

Then, they have the numbers game. 6 numbers randomly appear (1-10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 are the only options). After the 6 numbers, a random number between 100-1000 appears. (457, for example). The contestants then have 30 seconds to use those 6 numbers to create the result, or get as close to it as possible. I’m happy to report that my math skills are still sharp enough I consistently ace that game. It impresses my senoras significantly.

Currently on this show, there is the Spanish equivalent of Ken Jennings – an around-30 nerd (though not nearly as witty) who has won close to 100 times in a row. (Though, it´s a local show, so he only wins about €500 a night, not $25,000 like Ken did). He’s a very cute nerd…I kind of have a crush on him. Though, it came out on one show a while ago that he’s engaged. So…I’ll let that crush die away. I seriously do wonder, though, if he’s going to lose before I leave Spain all together.