Say Something in Spanish

I get this phrase a lot when we go home to the States.  I hate when people say this to me.  It feels like a challenge -- an unsolicited assessment of my ability and progress.  It reminds me of when I was younger, and people found out I could play the piano -- "play something", would be the inevitable response, and it never felt like the person really wanted to hear piano music, but rather just wanted to see if you were any good.  

I'm having issues learning Spanish, in case the defensive rant above didn't tip you off.  

I started off the year here with a lot of enthusiasm.  I had absolutely no background in Spanish, so after we arrived in Barcelona I decided to just dive right in and enroll in a beginners class twice weekly.  I assumed that by living in a country that spoke the language, and taking a class, I would be  "conversational" level in no time.  Now, I'm not the most chatty, outgoing person to begin with, and these classes were akin to going on an awkward first date with someone who doesn't speak your language -- even worse, you could only speak in a third language that neither of you spoke.  It.  Was.  Brutal.  Always pairing off to have these contrived brain numbing little chats about what you would pack on a beach vacation.  I get it.  I know what it was meant to achieve, but honestly after the 21 year-old German au pair and I ran out of Spanish words in 30 seconds, it didn't feel like I was getting any closer to speaking Spanish.  It really just felt like a social experiment gone horribly awry.  Plus the class was a 40 minute metro ride away, and this was during the time period when our entire family was half dead with the Catalan Plague of 2012.  I made it six weeks and quit. 

After limping along with Rosetta Stone and the powers of osmosis for a few months, I decided get back on the horse in September and use a private tutor once a week since Chris was having such great success with his.  I figured this would suit my personality and I could actually make some progress with my conversational Spanish with some good one-on-one, sin awkward pair offs....yet another strike out.  The main issue I had with the tutoring was the amount of material she threw at me.  It was dizzying.  Every week was a new tense when I barely had a handle on the one we just learned, and she would assign what I consider to be a lot of homework.  Inevitably, I wouldn't be able to finish it all, and we would meet the following week only for it to be brutally obvious I hadn't worked on what I was supposed to.  I wanted to be good at it.  To pick it up quickly.  To impress the teacher.  And instead I just mumbled and bumbled through our conversations feeling like a complete idiot, ultimately coming to the realization that I will never, ever speak Spanish.  I stopped tutoring because I felt like a big fat failure. 

Excuses, excuses, excuses. 

In my head, I had my reasons.  I tell myself, I don't have time for this shit.  Make no mistake, my children are my heart and soul, but it doesn't change the fact that staying home with them full time can suck the life out of me some (most) days.  There have been many well written articles and blog posts about the trials and tribulations of what I describe, I won't bore you with more, but will just say that when my children are finally asleep in their beds, the house is picked up, and my entire being has sunk into the couch like a lead balloon at 8pm -- sitting down to an hour of learning Spanish verb conjugations is not high on my list of things I want to do.  It isn't actually anywhere on my list of things I want to do.  Add to this the whole "I'm-living-in-a-foreign-country-and-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing" look I've been sporting for the past year, and you start to get an idea why my brain has essentially been an impenetrable cement block. 

Excuses, excuses, excuses. 

So around Christmastime, I completely gave up.  I decided to just keep on with the osmosis method -- picking up what I can by listening, and looking up what I need to know when I need to know it.  My comprehension, I'd like to think, is pretty good.  I get what people are saying to me, most of the time, and can function perfectly fine in stores, markets, restaurants, and dealing with little household stuff at the bank or post office.  I can get by fine, which has also contributed to my complacency.

But this week, something inside me changed.   I realized "getting by" isn't good enough for me anymore.  For me, it is simply unacceptable to come home in a year and have a less than basic level of Spanish.   I think a lot of this renewed vigor for learning comes from the fact that life in general is pretty calm and relaxed now...I'm not on sensory overload just walking out the door, and I've also realized that I am able to do this I just have to SPEAK. I have to open my mouth and just try, and keep trying.  You can't learn a language if you are afraid to speak it.  My tutor would often say to me that I worry too much about making sure my grammar is perfect, when really I should just keep talking regardless of whether or not it is right or wrong. 

I made some steps in the right direction yesterday -- I contacted my old tutor, and asked to start up our weekly hour together.  I asked our babysitter, who comes over to watch the kids once a week in the morning, to speak only in Spanish with me from now on.  I fired up good old Rosetta Stone, and bought an easy reader book in Spanish to start reading. 

It's time to get serious, and put in the effort.  Exhaustion or not, I can devote at least 30 minutes a day to Spanish studying.  It can be done, and I owe it to myself to at least try.  My hope and goal is to be proficient enough when we come home next year, that I would actually be able to see Spanish speaking patients, and use what I've learned at work...maybe even work on brushing up my French as well. 

So go ahead... ask me to say something in Spanish.  Next time, I'll be ready.