Adventures in Calamity Spanish

Prologue: I dedicate this blog to Alex S., good friend and blog queen, who is constantly reminding me that blogging is good for the health and very satisfying to a certain subset of attentive friends:-).

I apologize for the delay between posts. I'm still not quite sure what happened to the past month; an exhilirating/exhausting combination of work, play and travel seem to have conspired to make the time fly by without me realizing it. I'll use these next few entries to fill you in on the highlights.

One consistent aspect of my life in Madrid has become the inconsistency of learning Spanish. Ostensibly, I have plenty of opportunities to practice; I speak Spanish with my flatmates and with the teachers at school, and I am taking a 'Spanish for Foreigners' class two nights a week. I've had what I consider 'real' conversations in these situations (i.e. not just talking about the weather or what my plans are for the weekend). Despite these outlets, I basically have 'good' days and 'bad' days where language is concerned. I've been complimented on my speaking by a Madrileño one day and been told "I can't understand you" by a different native speaker the next. There are triumphs ("I totally just used that idiom correctly! I made someone laugh when I was joking around in Spanish!") and setbacks ("I can't believe I forgot how to conjugate that verb! Why can't I remember the word for 'sink'?"!). There is the recurring fear that I've plateaued in my ability and will never reach the level of fluency I desire.

I've noticed my Spanish competence varies greatly depending on the person/people with whom I'm interacting. There are some people with whom I am very comfortable and the words come easily and I don't get tripped up by minor mistakes, and the conversation just flows. Then there are others with whom, for whatever reason, I choke when I'm around. And self-consciousness is a kind of positive feedback loop--the more nervous you are, the more mistakes you make, the more mistakes you make, the more self-conscious you become, etc.

Also, sometimes it seems like my facility in one language changes in reverse proportion to the other. On my 'good' Spanish days, my English is lousy. I stumble over words and apply Spanish grammar rules ("Who can tell me what it means this word?"). I think about how I would express my thought in Spanish, and sometimes can't find the English equivalent (those moments are encouraging but also kind of freaky). On the other hand, after spending a day with Americans speaking English, it takes some time for me to get back into Spanish mode and I make careless mistakes there as well. It's like my brain can't handle both languages at once, and one prevails at the expense of the other.

These dynamics and variables are fascinating to think about, but frustrating to experience (much like my feelings towards the Spanish education system, but more about that later:-)). Que interesante. . .