Spanish words to keep you safe in Mexico

Published January 25, 2025

Living in San Miguel de Allende is as beautiful as it is precarious. The city’s narrow, cobblestone streets and barely-there sidewalks make every step a test of awareness and agility. Over the years, I’ve faced more than a few moments of near panic, frantically trying to warn foreigners of oncoming peril. It’s at those moments that I’ve noticed an inconvenient quirk: despite being fluent in English, my warnings come blurting out in Spanish.

Why do bilingual people revert to their native language under pressure? It all comes down to how the brain processes emotions and urgency. The limbic system, which handles primal emotions, reacts much faster than the brain’s language centers. Since our mother tongue is deeply ingrained in the neural pathways formed during childhood, it naturally becomes the default mode of expression. Automatic responses in times of danger prioritize instinct and speed over linguistic accuracy.

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