Feb. 27th, 2025

erinptah: A map. (books)

In search of the origin of the “dónde está la biblioteca” meme, I got my hands on a copy of Barron’s Spanish On The Go, 3rd edition (2004, the previous editions are 2001 and 1992).

There are a couple of “dónde…?” questions, as transcribed in the booklet, but none of them deal with las bibliotecas:

Scanned page of dialogue with five 'dónde' questions: dining room, newspapers, postcards, perfumes, and cameras.

That said, there’s still an open possibility the line was in the first edition, then the editors replaced it for the 2nd or 3rd edition, after they realized it had become a big joke.

Unfortunately, my library doesn’t have the earlier editions.

Fortunately, it looks like eBay does!

So, hey, stay tuned for part 3.


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