I was once fairly competent in Spanish. I lived with a Honduran family for four months, and we managed to communicate perfectly well in Spanish. By the end of the four months, my head didn't even hurt after a whole weekend of all-Spanish-all-the-time.
I lost it all the day I first formed a complete sentence in French, in Montreal in 2002. By the time I left for Rwanda 6 weeks later, it took a great deal of concentrating to explain to the Spanish couple waiting in line for the flight to Nairobi in Schipol Airport that there was another waiting room apres, um, I mean, despues de [1] the security check. Now I can understand most of what I hear in Spanish, provided the person speaking it is in the room with me (on the phone I am a disaster, complete and total), but I cannot produce actual thoughts without enormous effort. I almost have to close my eyes to think of Spanish words. When a visitor at work asks me where to go, I scrounge though my brain for the words. "Niveau? No... Oh! Piso? Um...Tercer? Tercer piso! [2]" Usually I end up just writing 348 or whatever room number on a post-it for them. It's embarrassing, really.
A week ago, I started a Spanish class. My French teacher is teaching the same class this quarter as last quarter, at a further away location, and I didn't feel like taking it over again. He is a great teacher, the class members are great, and I learned a lot from it (mostly Parisian curse words, heh), but a lot of it was also repetitious, this being the, um, third time I have started at the beginning in French. (I don't really need to start at the beginning, because when I am immersed in it I speak French kind of okay, but I don't know any actual, you know, spelling. Or grammar.) So, I am waiting for the fall to take French class again, when my teacher is teaching the next level up at the right place. Instead, I'm trying to revive the Spanish from the deepest crevices of my brain.
It's hard. After half an hour of listening to Spanish, I can sometimes produce a sentence or two, but the general gist is utter mental confusion. Now I am thinking in both languages, and sometimes neither. Sometimes, trying to think of a word in one language or another, I lose it even in English, which I would like to think I speak fluently.** And I have no idea what I'm going to do when I switch back to French. I think I'm going to have to take both classes at once in the fall, in the hopes that they will learn to coexist in my brain.
Translations, for the English-inclined:
[1] after
[2] third floor
* Random funny story related to the title of this post: when I was in Honduras, I was introduced to a Honduran cousin of my host family named Estephanie. For weeks, I called her Estephanie, like Glo.ria Estepha.n (sp?), thinking it was her name. Which, no. Her name was actually Stephanie, but due to the fact that Spanish words do not start with the letter S, everyone called her Estephanie. It was only when I saw her name written that I realized that her parents had purposely given her an American name, and that name was not Estephanie. She also went to a bilingual school, spoke perfect English, and frequently traveled to the US, so I'm sure she was wondering how a US American could possibly mispronounce her name.
** Random funny story related to three languages: in Rwanda, people would often ask what languages I spoke other than English and French. When I said some Spanish, I was repeatedly told how wonderful it was that I was trilingual. Other than the fact that I can hardly be said to be lingual at all in French or Spanish, I found it very odd that people who spoke Kinyarwanda, French, English, and often Lingala and Kiswahili would be complimenting me on my tri-linguality. When pressed, they would tell me that they were not quadra- or quinta-lingual, that only French and English counted. I, however, am far more impressed by the Kinyarwanda, French, English, Lingala, Kiswahili combination than by a trio of related languages that share the same roots for a great many words.
I lost it all the day I first formed a complete sentence in French, in Montreal in 2002. By the time I left for Rwanda 6 weeks later, it took a great deal of concentrating to explain to the Spanish couple waiting in line for the flight to Nairobi in Schipol Airport that there was another waiting room apres, um, I mean, despues de [1] the security check. Now I can understand most of what I hear in Spanish, provided the person speaking it is in the room with me (on the phone I am a disaster, complete and total), but I cannot produce actual thoughts without enormous effort. I almost have to close my eyes to think of Spanish words. When a visitor at work asks me where to go, I scrounge though my brain for the words. "Niveau? No... Oh! Piso? Um...Tercer? Tercer piso! [2]" Usually I end up just writing 348 or whatever room number on a post-it for them. It's embarrassing, really.
A week ago, I started a Spanish class. My French teacher is teaching the same class this quarter as last quarter, at a further away location, and I didn't feel like taking it over again. He is a great teacher, the class members are great, and I learned a lot from it (mostly Parisian curse words, heh), but a lot of it was also repetitious, this being the, um, third time I have started at the beginning in French. (I don't really need to start at the beginning, because when I am immersed in it I speak French kind of okay, but I don't know any actual, you know, spelling. Or grammar.) So, I am waiting for the fall to take French class again, when my teacher is teaching the next level up at the right place. Instead, I'm trying to revive the Spanish from the deepest crevices of my brain.
It's hard. After half an hour of listening to Spanish, I can sometimes produce a sentence or two, but the general gist is utter mental confusion. Now I am thinking in both languages, and sometimes neither. Sometimes, trying to think of a word in one language or another, I lose it even in English, which I would like to think I speak fluently.** And I have no idea what I'm going to do when I switch back to French. I think I'm going to have to take both classes at once in the fall, in the hopes that they will learn to coexist in my brain.
Translations, for the English-inclined:
[1] after
[2] third floor
* Random funny story related to the title of this post: when I was in Honduras, I was introduced to a Honduran cousin of my host family named Estephanie. For weeks, I called her Estephanie, like Glo.ria Estepha.n (sp?), thinking it was her name. Which, no. Her name was actually Stephanie, but due to the fact that Spanish words do not start with the letter S, everyone called her Estephanie. It was only when I saw her name written that I realized that her parents had purposely given her an American name, and that name was not Estephanie. She also went to a bilingual school, spoke perfect English, and frequently traveled to the US, so I'm sure she was wondering how a US American could possibly mispronounce her name.
** Random funny story related to three languages: in Rwanda, people would often ask what languages I spoke other than English and French. When I said some Spanish, I was repeatedly told how wonderful it was that I was trilingual. Other than the fact that I can hardly be said to be lingual at all in French or Spanish, I found it very odd that people who spoke Kinyarwanda, French, English, and often Lingala and Kiswahili would be complimenting me on my tri-linguality. When pressed, they would tell me that they were not quadra- or quinta-lingual, that only French and English counted. I, however, am far more impressed by the Kinyarwanda, French, English, Lingala, Kiswahili combination than by a trio of related languages that share the same roots for a great many words.
3 comments:
just caught up with your blog... and would just like to say I agree full heartedly re the cold and hating it. also. ugh the language thing... I CANNOT do Spanish and French in my same head. I started speaking Spanish and the French just went and hid in some corner of my brain.. I who wrote 20 page philosophy papers in French for the Bac. It's not fair.
glad you're ok.
Agreed on two counts- I did all my primary and most of my secondary school in French. Then 3 years of advanced Spanish in university. And then I lived in Rwanda. My brain is a mishmash of French conjugation, Spanish vocabulary and a horrid tendency of losing my English when I'm trying hard to speak in French or Spanish and the person I'm speaking with suggests I revert back to my first language. Embarassing, but funny.
And yeah. I was talking about the hilarity of my 'trilingualism' vs the Kinyarwanda/Kiswahili/Lingala/Luganda plus English and/or French of nearly all my Rwandese friends. Upon hearing that not only could I carry myself in French and English but also sort of in Spanish, every Rwandese I met was astounded.
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