Flashcards.
If you were to believe my college transcript, I spoke Spanish decently at one point. At least well enough to earn a B+ in Advanced Spanish Language Skills and an A- in Spanish Conversation (both 3000 level classes).
But if you were to have heard the telephone conversation I had this afternoon to book a pediatrician appointment for Nicolas, you would have your doubts.
Because when the ridiculously patient receptionist asked which doctor we’d like to see, I may or may not have given up completely and requested ¿Alguien que habla inglés?
Yes. I’m THAT woman.
Again.
In Brussels, I had plausible excuses for not picking up either of the capitol city’s two official languages. Dutch speakers almost always spoke English just as well as I do and therefore there was no good reason to learn more than a few polite phrases. And Francophone Bruxellois didn’t (or pretended they didn’t) understand my feeble attempts at short phrases even after a semester in language school. By halfway through my three years there, I had given up completely on the idea of ever gaining even a mediocre mastery of the language. I spoke French only when absolutely necessary and using just enough to get by.
When we found out we were coming here to Santo Domingo, I had dreams that the Spanish that I had once spoken passably, if not perfectly fluently, would come back without a whole lot of effort on my part.
It has not.
As I grasp for vocab and float somewhat randomly between verb tenses, I’m realizing that getting by here is going to require a hell of a lot more concentrated effort on my part than occasionally glimpsing over at the review guide sitting on my bookshelf.
And that, even if I were to crack open the book every now and then, it may still be a slightly uphill battle.
Dominican Spanish is something else.
It is not the clear, crisp Spanish I learned in high school from textbooks and CDs designed to support language acquisition. Nor does it have the same slang I heard in the backs of restaurants in Denver and Boulder.
It is breathtakingly fast and full of shortcuts. It leaves me struggling to place dropped consonants while the speaker has gotten three paragraphs ahead of me.
Truth telling time: when the Tropigas sales exec came to our door last week to check in on our propane tank, I looked to our nanny to “translate” what he had just said because I simply couldn’t keep up.
But I’m finding a willingness to meet me in the middle. Sometimes all it takes is my deer in the headlights look for the speaker to slow down a few more beats and use slightly simpler words. And if the look isn’t enough, a quick Disculpe, pero no lo entiendo, gets the job done. There also seems to be less exasperation when my circumlocutions are painstakingly long and my hand gestures bordering on comical. (Except for the gal at Burger King our first week here. She was less than welcoming as I stumbled through my order.)
I don’t want to end up where I did in Brussels, barely getting by on six verbs and a handful of nouns. I want to be more self-sufficient here and more confident in my abilities to express my needs and my thoughts. I want to be better able to learn about my host country and its people. And I want to not make a complete ass of myself every time I open my mouth.
It’s becoming more and more clear that my dreams of fluency will only come with some hard work.
Guess it’s time I do something about it.
