For years I
have spoken beautiful, fluent Spanish.
Spanish that can bring you to tears.
Or so I
thought. I learned a teeny bit attending
Edith Bowen Elementary, a laboratory grade school. Emphasis on teeny. I retained numbers, colors, and three or four
body parts.
But I thought
I spoke Spanish, so I never took it again in the upper grades. Wrongo.
Incorrecto.
Fast forward
and I have decided that an English/Spanish dictionary is all I need. I am now looking up every word I want, and
using it to speak with native Spanish speakers in Los Angeles, where I lived
for twenty years.
And here’s a
bulletin about Hispanics: They’re too polite.
They tell you your Spanish is great, and they understand you perfectly. Okay, maybe they
understand you, but trust me: If you are
speaking Spanish you taught yourself with a dictionary, you are speaking Cave
Man Spanish. You are saying, “Me like this. I have happy. Here is you
book. Me go now.”
But Latinos
are basically nice. They don’t want
to hurt your feelings, and unlike we English-speaking grammar fanatics, they
have no need to correct you every time you open your mouth. So they smile and nod, and you are led down
the path to linguistic hell. Okay, maybe
not hell, but at least heck.
Fast forward
some more. I am volunteering to help out
in stores and all over the place, when someone speaks Spanish and a translator
is needed. I am totally happy to lend my
expertise.
And then a
bit more fast forwarding and our son, Cassidy, returns from his LDS church
mission to Argentina and says, “Mom, your Spanish is terrible. You don’t even use soy.”
Soy? As in edame?
I certainly do use soy!
But now I suspect this is a
critical Spanish word that has been missing from my repertoire (should have
studied French), and sure enough, I look it up online and soy means I am.
Imagine speaking English without that auxiliary verb!
And that’s not all. There are all kinds of conjunctions and
phrases missing from my Spanish and I realize now that when dozens of Spanish
speakers have asked me where I learned my Spanish they weren’t meaning, “Wow,
I’m so impressed,” but “Where on earth did you learn such dreadful Spanish?”
Like I said,
it can bring you to tears.
Fortunately,
my books are available in English. Find
them here and get started early on your Christmas shopping!