“I no speakity Spanish” – as my Uncle always says.
That’s kind of how I have been feeling since I’ve been in Spain.
I definitely know enough to get by and I have studied endless amounts of Spanish in school.
But actually living in a Spanish speaking country is so different.
Spain has a different accent than what I’m used to ( they talk with a lisp here ), they use different words than what I have learned and they use different forms than what I have been taught.
For a moment, let’s compare American English to England English. We use different words in America than they use in England and vise versa. For example : jumper = sweater, chips = french fries, flat = apartment, chemist = pharmacy, boot = trunk, etc.
The same is for Spain vs other Spanish countries.
And for the most part, in school they taught us Mexico Spanish and I am now having to learn Spain Spanish. So I am having to re-learn some words and phrases that relate to Spain.
Also, here in Spain, they use a form called “Vosotros” which basically means you or you all in an informal way. In high school, they told us “We aren’t going to teach you Vosotros because you’re only really going to need it if you ever go to Spain. So just know Vosotros is used in Spain but other than that we aren’t going to go into much detail about it”. So I never learned anything about it in high school.
Then I got to college and ended up minoring in Spanish! But in college, they told us basically the same thing. “ Vosotros is used in Spain but we are not going to use it here in our classes. You should have studied Vosotros in your high school classes ( which I did not) so we are not going to go over it here”. So I never learned it…. and here I am living in Spain not knowing how to use it. Oh well, I am surviving without it.
There is definitely a learning curve being immersed here in Spain but I am learning a lot!
Sometimes, I feel like Michael Scott when he asks someone to explain something to him like he is 5 years old.
Here in Spain, I am like: “Hi, yes could you repeat that for me, slow it WAY down and while you’re at it you might as well explain it to me like I’m a 5 year old…. THANKS!”
I’m just kidding. Well, kind of….
I have had to ask some people to slow down speaking for me which is kind of embarrassing ( why do native Spanish speakers talk so fast??) but a lot of the time when they say the exact same sentence but a little slower I can understand them! So that’s exciting!
I am hoping by the end of my time here I will know, speak and understand a lot more Spanish than I did when I first arrived.
Like I said at the beginning, studying Spanish for all those years is a lot different than actually being emerged in it. But I do have some solid background to fall back on. And I’m excited to see how much I will learn and improve!
As always, I will keep you updated on all my endeavors. I have to go now and practice my Spanish!
¡ Hasta Luego ¡ ¡ Besos !