Why Don't They Speak Spanish In China?

Em and I often wish that Chinese people spoke Spanish. We both took some in high school, and even though we don't remember a lot whenever our Mexican/Spanish classmates begin to rattle off some Spanish we totally understand so much more than Chinese, even after living in China for a year.

I recently got a facebook message from an exchange student who came to our place back in my junior year of high school. It goes like this:

Hola! Estas buscando un sobresueldo? Estoy trabajando ya durante 2 meses en las horas libres del trabajo principal a favor de una compania grande. En el mes pasado he cobrado 2.470 euros. Ellos siguen buscando colaboradores. Si necesitas un trabajo adicional, envia su breve resumen (nombre, apellidos, pais de residencia, ciudad, edad, telefono de contacto) a la direccion: buenos suerte!!!!

Even if you don't speak Spanish you can probably get what is going on. Linguists say 60% of English and Spanish have some crossover to them, but Chinese and English, 2%. Check out the translation in Chinese:

你好! 寻找额外付款的这些？ 我在主要工作的自由小时内已经工作在2个月期间倾向于一家大公司。 在上个月我接受了2,470欧元。 他们持续寻找合作。 如果您需要另外的工作，它寄发它的简单的概要(命名，姓，住所，城市，年龄国家，我打电话联络)到方向：[在电子邮件方向请消灭空间]
好运!

Ok, so the characters might not be a fair representation, so I'll translate it into the alphabetical form of Chinese called "pinyin."

nǐhǎo xúnzhǎo éwài fùkuǎn dì / de / dí zhèxiē wǒ zài zhǔyào gōngzuò dì / de / dí zìyóu xiǎoshí nèi yǐjīng gōngzuò zài gè yuè qījiān qīngxiàng yú yī jiā dài / dà gōngsī zài shàng gè yuè wǒ jiēshòu liǎo / le ōuyuán tāmen chíxù xúnzhǎo hézuò rúguǒ nín xūyào lìngwài dì / de / dí gōngzuò tā jì fā / fà tāde jiǎndān dì / de / dí gàiyào mìngmíng xìng zhù suǒ chéngshì niánlíng guójiā wǒ dǎdiànhuà liánluò dào fāngxiàng dào dào huòzhě huò / hé huò huò huò zài diànzǐyóujiàn fāngxiàng qǐng xiāomiè kōngjiān.

There's not a word that even starts with the same letter! If only they spoke Spanish in China...