Ger-Span-Glish

Before we left on the trip people asked me if I spoke Spanish…of course I spoke Spanish! I live in California and took three years of it in high school. Unfortunately for me, I also speak English and am learning German which means I tend to speak all three at once when under pressure.  My train of thought goes something like this:  Two please, swei bitte, swei please, Swei, swei, swei...Dos! dos bitte, dos please, dos por favor.  The first two days were a complete mess;  not only was I confused but so was everyone else I talked to…I ended up defaulting to Martin to whom I had forgotten lived in Madrid for a few months and hiked through Spain.  Eventually I had to admit American defeat – the one language skill I thought I could add to the relationship to compliment Martin’s German, English, Italian and French was outside my cognitive reach.

In my defense, we were spending most our time in Santiago with Germans or German speakers.  With Tim’s family 100% German and Anna’s a combination of Chilean and German, Deustche was inevitably the default language.  However that defense only took me so far as to put me in my proper place – all of Anna’s family, and we are talking extended family of cousins, cousins girlfriends, nephews, etc could all speak Spanish, English and German fluently and could flawlessly transition between them depending on their audience or mood.  It was truly awe-inspiring and humbling.  Even more amazing, the only other American at the wedding (a friend of the couple’s from Berlin) could partake in all conversations regardless of the language of choice.

 
I have some serious work to do but am partially resigned to the fact that I won’t be fluent until I am re-immersed. In the meantime, Martin was kind enough to point out that I do in fact speak more than one language – I can speak English AND hillbilly.  Such a loving man.