Can You Speak The Language?

Spanish? Italian?  French?

Unfortunately, no. I cannot speak any of these languages fluently. Though Multilingualism is the skill I am most envious of, unless you consider SMS or emoticons other languages, I am only fluent in my native tongue. English. Flat and boring English. I wish I could speak a more musical language like French or Italian. A Romance language. Or even Spanish. The ability to understand and communicate in Spanish would be quite useful living in Southern California. Practical and alluring. Learning another language would be like taking on a whole different identity. I would be able to chit-chat with millions more people. I could express myself with an entirely brand new vocabulary. If I was bilingual, my brain would have to categorize everything with two words. Computer. Computadora. Me. Yo. Even the act of speaking would be different. I could purse my lips and punch out my vowels. Or roll my r's and linger on l's. Ahhh to speak another language! If only I had always been this enthusiastic...

I had instruction in Spanish all throughout high school and took some classes in college, yet at best, my proficiency can be described as basic. I'm convinced my lack of prowess is mostly the result of poor teaching. My hypochondriac of a high school teacher taught us more about her neurotic phobias than conversational Spanish. I recall that bathtubs made her sea sick; I do not remember verb conjugations. While her highly vocalized anxiety may have subconsciously been the reason why I went on to receive my undergraduate degree in Psychology, it had little to no affect on my grasp of the spanish language. In college the shortcomings lied in the discipline department-- in terms of both my college professor and myself. My professor was definitely a better instructor than the Senora in high school, but he was unable to get a rowdy classroom of college freshman to participate. Without our cooperation, we never memorized the material. The class syllabus clearly stated that we were required to speak ONLY in Spanish during class, yet this rarely happened. We spoke Spanglish. Also, having given us one of the textbooks that included all the answers in the back of the book, even the homework he assigned was easily bypassed. The entire class hastily copied the assignment answers at our desks before the bell. We all got 100's and learned very little. My participation that semester mostly consisted of desktop siestas which, in my defense, at least added to culture of the classroom. I was making it a little more "Spanish"! And don't get the wrong impression of me. I was a scholarly student, just also very resourceful. This class was an easy A, so I slept through it to conserve my energy for more grueling courses like Macrobiology. It was my first year of college. At times, I was getting so drunk I could barely speak English! There was no way I was mastering a foreign language.

Now I  have matured greatly and would love to learn, but no longer have the means. The days of College classes are long gone and Rosetta Stone is too expensive. You can find my current language teachers in the kitchen of a restaurant I occasionally waitress at. The prep cook answers my constant "Como se dice ____ ?" and the fryer guy teaches me phrases that I can only hope mean what they tell me he means. I practice. I repeat the words over and over again and write them down phonetically on the back of old, cut-up menus. I do everything from firing the next course to ordering my lunch in spanish. The head chef speaks Italian and French. He tutors me in foreign proverbs and different ways to say "Cheers!" But, alas, I have not learned enough.  The slips of paper always find their way in the garbage and the phrases find their way out of my memory. I can confidently ask for a blackened chicken salad or identify every food in the walk-in fridge,  but am still far from fluent.

As I have been thinking a lot about this weakness of mine, I've decided two things. First thing is that once I get an income, I am investing in Michel Thomas audiobooks. Or perhaps I should order them now seeing that I have no job other than to plan my trip....more on that later I am sure. Secondly, and most importantly, is that I am well-spoken in the universal langauge. Kindness. A smile. I can communicate with my heart before a mispronounced word ever leaves my lips---silent conversations of congeniality. A cordial gaze and benevolent nod can act as my introduction. I will not be different from the people I meet---I just won't understand most of the words coming out of the their mouth. Friend, amigo, mon amie; the concept has no country lines. Humanity, as well as humor, transcends all cultures. My happiness is infectious and my giggling, contagious. I imagine I'll share several good laughs while I stumble with my "Traveler's Phrase Book",  butchering the accents and not comprehending the response. I think the people in other countries will appreciate the effort I put into attempting to talk with them. I can feel at home knowing that even in a foreign land, politeness goes a long way. Hopefully it's true what they say-- a smile is worth a thousand words. That will bump my vocabulary up to one thousand and sixty and I will get by. I am fluent in friendliness. 

Enthusiastically Optimistic

I Ameri-CAN