They say learning a new language opens up new worlds.
They also say, “You’ve been in Spain for 3 years? You must be fluent!”
Wellll.
Sure, I have enough Spanish in me to walk out of a salon with the haircut I asked for. I also know enough Spanish to fix an earache. But the ability to say “Keep the volume on top, shorter at the nape” and “Everything sounds like I am under water” is barely new worlds opened. It just means I can do logistics in Spain.
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My dream was to dominate Spanish – not just learn it casually like I did other languages, but really crush it. Own it. Understand its soul, inhale its words, twirl them around my fingers, debate with it, argue with it, and perhaps even write in it.
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This desire stems not so much from the mere fact that I live here, but from the fact that the foundation of Spanish culture is the lexicon. If I lived in a less voluble country, say Japan, I doubt my linguistic aspirations would be as strong. But in Spain, discourse is the heart of the culture. Take for example, the tradition of ‘sobremesa’ where the Spanish hang around the table after a meal for extended periods of time to talk. Or the prolonged Spanish goodbye where bidding farewell just means that the conversation is transported in stages from dining table, to living room, to entrance way, to driveway, to car door. Or the fact that my partner uses his phone to actually TALK to family and friends.
On the streets, in the stores, at the dinner table — there are so many . . . words. Words flying in all directions: at each other, over each other, wrestling with each other. The golden tenet in conversation is: once you have the floor, never cede it. A Spanish teacher explained the expression “es que, o sea, te lo juro, de verdad [1]” as basically a bunch of words to fend off your interlocutor from speaking while you are thinking of what to say next. Hence, the other golden tenet in conversation is: remember that to shout is human, to interrupt divine.
The usage of words is a national sport. If I cannot participate, am I even here??
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Let it be known that contrary to popular belief, the simple fact of taking up residency in Spain does not automatically make one a Spanish speaker. I say this particularly as an adult learner. Just because I sit next to teenagers gabbing in the bus doesn’t mean I come home linguistically wiser (I just come home with a headache.) Children, by contrast, pick up languages as quickly as they do viruses. Linguists agree that over the age of 10, learning a language needs focus and deliberation.
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Armed with the trauma of formal language classes, I created my homespun version of language learning. The theme was Go Big or Go Home. I chose what I wanted to learn; I organized my own conversations; I joined reading clubs; I watched a lot of youtube videos.
I did a full and complete immersion — I set English aside and relied on Spanish for everything. If I wanted to read, I’d pick up a Spanish book. If I wanted to listen to a podcast, in Spanish. The news? In Spanish. A visit to a museum? Spanish audio guide. If I wanted to write, it had to be in Spanish (so I stopped writing altogether).
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Of course, it is only when you lose something that you realize its importance. To me, it was the importance of precision. Language teachers advice: “You don’t have to understand everything. Just get the gist”. But to live in a state of gist is to live with a hangover: you are aware that something occurred but are not 100% sure of EXACTLY what occurred. One day, I stepped out of the elevator into the blinding lights of my lobby. I told the Spanish-only-speaking doorman, “Jose, qué luz! I feel like we’re in the middle of the sun!” He laughed and launched his rapid-fire explanation: “You remember last year, it was the same something-something . . . I tried to change the bulbs (laugh). . . the vice president of the building scolded me and told me that something-something (big laugh). . . need to keep them on until midnight but I’ll turn them off earlier (laugh). . . lots of girls come to take selfies something-something (laugh).” I understood what happened; I knew it was funny; but how funny? I’ll never know.
This insufficiency of gist works the other way, too. While visiting the city of Burgos, our friends insisted that we see the little church next to the cathedral. “You MUST see it,” they said, “we’ll wait here outside.” We entered the small, dark chapel. In the center was an inordinately large altar composed of intricate biblical scenes all etched out of limestone. It glowed under the only light streaming through the window. I was struck. We stepped outside. “Y??? Qué te parece [2],” they asked expectantly. The right words didn’t come — no “breathtaking”, no “unbelievable craftsmanship”, not even “spectacular”. I replied, “Superguay [3],” like any eloquent woman would.
Without precise words, the colors and textures of stories are lost. Nothing stands out; nothing sticks. My daily experiences were tepid shades of gray washing over me like teflon.
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Fortunately, there was some pay off to all this. Little by little, I found flow – times when I was no longer conscious that I was Reading in Spanish, but simply Reading. Times that I was in a conversation to later realize it was entirely in Spanish. Times when I was listening to my partner tell a story and realize, not that he was speaking in Spanish, but that he is actually funny.
Then one night, while having dinner with friends, one of them pulled out her phone and showed us a meme on youtube. It was a video juxtaposing Spanish gypsies to the government of Spain. They all watched and laughed. I understood the words but not the humor. My friend thought about how to explain it, and with all the love (and pity) in the world said, “It’ll take a lifetime, and a walk through history, to explain what this means.”
I realized that this is where my linguistic plans fall apart. A nation’s esoteric expressions, humor, cultural innuendos are all born out of a shared past. To fully understand the commonly used “De perdidos, al rio [4]”, for example, one needs to talk about war. To grasp a Spanish mother’s threat “Te vas a enterar lo que vale un peine [5]” one needs to talk about the Middle Age torture.
In the same way, when I try to bring my own spin to the Spanish language, my attempts fall flat. I told my teacher “Tengo que encender un fuego bajo mi culo [6]”, and he nervously asked “What are you trying to tell me?”
Language comes laden with collective experiences. To define terms like “Pijo”, “Maria Clara”, and “White picket fence” to mean “posh”, “demure”, and “traditional suburban dreams” would barely be skimming the surface. Learning the language will not transplant the years of baggage that is attached to them. Besides, I’m half a lifetime too late for that.
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Thankfully, Spanish has gone beyond being a practical language for me. Through it, I am now able to get a glimpse of the promised new lands by understanding a little more of its books, shows, dialogues. I may one day get a word in a conversation, argue, debate, even write. But I know I will never dominate it; never ever possess it.
Meanwhile, I have gone back to my own words, the words I grew up with. I’ve missed being able to read deeply, write details, and feel all the textures of my experiences. Through this meandering language journey, I have come to learn that while language can offer the excitement of new adventures, it also has the consolatory ability to bring us home.
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[1] “because, I mean, I swear to you, really”[2] “And??? What do you think?”
[3] “Super cool”
[4] Literally means “From lost to the river”; loosely means “What the heck?”
[5] Literally means “You will find out the value of a comb”, loosely means “Watch out”
[6] “I need to light a fire under my arse.”
**cover photo by Lucas Allmann. Doodle by me.
