Words Fail Me: Legend of Zorro

Sometimes a single word in one one language can represent multiple words in another.
Esperar, for example, can mean
1.) to wait for
2.) to hope
3.) to expect
4.) to look forward to

Seriously? Way to mess me up, Spanish.

Come on. Different concepts here. Maybe you expected me to be a slackass and take three weeks to write this post, but you were hoping I'd put something up today. Or not. Fair enough. Were you just waiting to hear from me, or were you looking forward to it? See? Different. So I'm never quite sure if I'm expressing the subtle nuances with that single Spanish word. I feel like I have to clarify. Granted, I'm often not sure if I'm expressing blatant, simple-ass distinctions either, but whatever.

Typical phone call between me and the esposo:

Him: ¿Dónde estás?  (Where are  you?)

Me: En la parada. (At the bus stop.)  Esperando Godot.
      Bueno, "esperando-waiting for" Godot ... no "esperando-expecting" him.  

(See? Told you. I've got jokes now.)

Not the same.

This happens a lot with animal words, especially animals that aren't very common in Latin America.

Moose and elk: different animals, right? Bzzzzt! Not in Costa Rica, where they're both called alce.

Hawks and falcons are both called halcón.

Squirrels and chipmunks? Ardilla.

Foxes and skunks are both zorro here.

What the hell, people?

In the dictionary, "fox" is zorro, "skunk" is mofeta or zorrillo, and all is right with the world. But that's standard Spanish. The Spanish of dictionaries and textbooks. Of logic. The Spanish of other countries where I don't live. Tico Spanish is a whole'nuther animal. In Costa Rica, the dictionary means jack because haha, foreigner! Gotcha.

You can talk about a whole'nuther animal in Costa Rica if you want, but you're going to use the name of this here animal when you do it.

Hold on, my cat is barking at something. Hush, Rover.

So one night, the esposo and I were walking home from the bus stop. It was pretty dark, but it was a clear, starry night with a full moon limning the coffee fields and lending a Harlequin-worthy, romantic glow to the whole scene. It also backlit the bats zipping about, so visions of Satan's winged minions tangled in my hair kind of killed the romance for me, but still. (Spare me the infomercial about bats not bothering humans. We've been over this. You walk your dog past that tree on the corner with its magic -- and possibly hallucinogenic -- fruit that transforms them into deranged, dive-bombing defenders of the harvest, and then come talk to me.)

So we're strolling leisurely along, because the esposo is a stroller, a saunterer, and I'm looking up at the moon, trying to ignore the occasional shadow flitting across its face, when the esposo says,

Mira, un zorro! (Look, a fox!)

I looked, but it had already slipped into the coffee field. I wondered if the moon was bright enough for a photo, foxes being prettier than bats and less interested in my hair. I fumbled for my camera.

Me (in Spanish): Where did it go?

Esposo: That way. Into the coffee field.

Me: I can't believe I missed it! It would be such a beautiful picture. I think the moon's bright enough.

Him: Why do you want a picture of a fox? It's one of the ugliest animals.

Me: What? How can you say that? They're gorgeous animals -- that beautiful fur and tail!

Him: [derisive snort] The fur is ugly. It's practically bald. And the tail is the ugliest part of all. It has the tail of a rat. 

photo: Olga Gladysheva

I actually stopped walking. How was I married to someone who found a fox, of all animals, ugly? I mean, if foxes were ugly, what next? Were giraffes on his ugly list? Wombats? Where the hell did I fall, for that matter? Foxes do not belong on the ugly list. In the 70s, your crush was "a fox" instead of a hottie. And that whole Mask of Zorro thing? Hello, Antonio Banderas. Zorro. Foxy. Lordy. I rest my case.

Me: Who ARE you? What kind of person thinks a fox is ugly? And if their tails are so ugly, why do people make coats and ... and ... those things you wear around your shoulders ... out of them?  Cómo se dice "stole"?

[Fruitless, exasperating side discussion about the word "stole".]

Him: No one would make a coat or ... anything out of this ugly animal. Much less its rat tail.

By this time, I'm actually annoyed. He's obviously as demented as the bats. I've married a fox-hater. Everyone knows foxes don't have ...

Me: Why do you keep saying it has a rat tail?

Him: Because they're like big rats. Rats in trees.

Me: Trees? Foxes don't climb trees.

Him: Of course they do. Zorros pelones (bald foxes) do. They use their ugly tails. 

And that's how I learned that in Costa Rica, a zorro is not only a fox, not only a skunk, it's a freaking possum as well.

What the hell? Wasn't expecting that. (Or looking forward to it, or hoping for it, or ...)

I'd learned possum as zarigüeye. The dictionary said so. You all know where I'm going with that. Ha-fucking-ha, foreigner! Gotcha!

When pressed, the esposo admitted you can differentiate with descriptors:
zorro-zorro = fox
zorro pelón = possum (bald fox)
zorro hediondo = skunk (foul-smelling, stank-ass fox)

I don't know why people don't differentiate all the time, but I know one thing: I am not even asking about badgers or weasels.

I Need to Address This

When the esposo was merely a pre-esposo and we were courting a través la distancia (bumbling about in a long-distance relationship), the misunderstandings due to culture and language happened even more often than they do now, and it usually took us longer to realize it.

Pretty much.

The esposo is a librarian, though he doesn't work in a traditional library. He's in charge of the document center at one of the government ministries. I worked in an academic library before fleeing the rainhole that is Seattle. We're both grammar nerds who suffer from anxiety over the mistakes we know we're unknowingly making in our second languages. We both like editing and proofreading -- he even edits the annual ministry reports that go to the president -- and we're both readers. He's more into the classics than I am and has read some in English.

When we first met, I noticed that he had an impressive maritime vocabulary. Even among native speakers, words like skiff and buoy don't often come up in everyday conversation, so this being his second language, I naturally assumed he must be some kind of badass fisherman. Lures, hooks, maybe even a gaff. At the time, I was still working on words like cow and hangover in Spanish, and I still don't know many nautical terms. He told me no, he'd never been fishing, which made me wonder if perhaps terms like mast head and harpoon might be his way of flirting. I decided I was out of there if poop deck came up. It turned out that one of the first books he'd read in English was Hemingway's The Old Man and Sea, and he'd made vocabulary lists.

Hey, you never know when you might need gunwale in a sentence.

On my visits, I noticed that not many people had books at home, even people who liked to read. Libraries exist, but having a big, up-to-date circulating collection is not really a thing. After I got my residency, I asked about checking out books from the local library. You'd have thought I'd asked to check the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre. Books are terrifically expensive here, and the average salary doesn't support a lot of book-buying. Books are shrink-wrapped in bookstores. No browsing. And don't even think about coffee near the books.

Students don't get textbooks here. They make copies of photocopies at little papelerías clustered around schools and universities. (That made me twitchy; my boss was the copyright officer at our college library.) The esposo's chess group downloads PDFs of chess books and prints spiral-bound copies at the same copy shops. He's in a book club at work, but they download PDFs. Buying books just isn't a thing here.

I decided I was going to buy my not-yet-esposo a book or two and mail them to him. What better gift for a librarian in a place where books were hard to come by? So I asked him for his address.

And that was when our long-distance relationship almost didn't go the distance.

Me (on Skype): I'm going to send you a present! What's your address?

Him:  ... emmm, that's ... a little difficult.

Me: What do you mean, "difficult"? What's difficult about it? Just type it out in the chat box.

Him: Well ... I don't really have an address.

Me: Okay, whatever you call it in Spanish. Dirección.

Him: No, I mean, I don't have one. Not exactly.

Me: How do you not exactly have an address? I mean, you live in a house, it's on a street, the street is in a town. How does mail get to your house?

Him: We don't normally receive mail, but if someone has mail, the post office has an idea where the house is, and someone comes on a moto and beeps the horn until you come out. Or he asks the neighbors.

Me: Okay, so the mail carrier can find it. What's your street name?

Him: It doesn't really have a name. 

At this point, the yellow flag that had been fluttering in my brain is about to snap the mast head. What does he mean his street "doesn't really have a name"? Something is fishy here.

Me: Okay, well what do people call it? What's your house number?

Him: Number? It doesn't have a number.

Me: ... [activates resting bitch face]

Him: People usually just say it's the house with the green steps next to the seafood restaurant.

Me: ... mm-hmm. What's your ZIP Code?

Him: What's a ZIP Code? 

Did I say fishy? I meant something's stank-ass rotten in TicoLandia. Why was he acting so weird, being so cagey? There's only one reason a man doesn't want you to know where he lives. Ladies, am I right?

This motherfucker was married. Oh, hell no. I curtly ended the Skype call on some pretext or other and sought the advice of an expert. Google.

What the ... ?

Okay, fine. So he wasn't married. I sheepishly packed away my righteous indignation and deleted the draft of the blistering farewell letter I was going to send. By email, of course, because the man had no address.

Fifty meters past where that fig tree used to be, then ... 

Turns out Costa Rica really doesn't have house numbers or street names. ZIP Codes were finally instituted about seven years back, but no one knows that or has any idea what a ZIP Code even is. Even librarians at government ministries. Wait, let me amend my first statement: In San José (the capital) and other larger cities, there technically are street names in the city centers. Any tourist or potentially two-timed woman can look on Google maps and see a nice grid laid out with sensibly numbered avenues and streets.

Fast forward to the first time I went to Alajuela on the bus by myself. I casually dismissed the esposo's advice to ask three people for directions in order to make sure they match. (Time out for culture: Ticos are extremely polite and extremely nonconfrontational. They'd feel rude saying "I don't know" when asked for directions. They'd rather be "helpful"  and guess wildy than tell you directly that they don't know. So ask three different people. Triangulate that shit. Old school GPS.) 

I printed out this map, see? Google. I mapped out all the places I want to go, and planned my route. I won't need to ask anyone. I've got this, babe. 

The esposo looked dubious and didn't quite know what to make of the map. He turned it around a few times and handed it back to me.

Well, if it doesn't work, just remember to ask at least three people.

How could a map not work? It's foolproof. 

I got to Alajuela, super excited, because my route included a gringo-run bookstore that had loads of used books and a bookshop cat. Browsing allowed. I planned to buy some books and then head to a place that makes Tex-Mex food, where I would settle down for the afternoon with some enchiladas, my books, and some ice-cold beer. I know, right? Afterward, I'd walk to the park and maybe get some ice cream before heading home. I didn't see a street sign at the bus stop corner, so I walked to the next block to orient myself. No street signs there, either. Uh oh. I asked for help locating the nearest street sign. No one knew what the hell I was talking about.

There were no street signs.

What good does it do to name streets without putting up street signs? Apparently, the street-naming was from a big push 20 or 30 years ago to organize things. It clearly lost steam. I still thought I could find my way on my own because that's what stubborn, independent gringas who know everything do, but it was high noon, so my already lacking skills in navigating by the sun's shadow were shot completely to hell.

I asked people. Three. I never did find the bookstore that day, so I guess I should've gone for four, but there were still enchiladas and beer. The beer was pretty damn refreshing after all that wandering around and doubling back and sweating. I think I even had it on ice that day, estilo tico.

I used the damn map as a coaster.

Since then, street signs have been installed in San José, and I'm seeing them pop up here and there in the larger cities. Foreigners were ecstatic, but it hasn't made much difference. Ask a taxista to take you to Avenida 2 y Calle 12, and you'll get a blank look. Tell him La Merced church, and he knows exactly how to get to that same intersection. Trying to meet up with a Costa Rican by using street names won't even get you a lackluster reach-around. Best go with 200 meters north of the soccer field, past the licorera, 50 meters east, then past the coffee fields to the karaoke bar.

So if any of you come a-visiting, go to the funeral chapel that's southeast of the vegetable stand -- you know the one, near that little bakery -- then head 100 meters east, 150 south, and then another 75 meters to the east. Or you can come the back way: just go down the "street of the turkeys" and go north on the gravel road before that house with the pit bull.  There haven't been any turkeys on that street for years, so it won't help to look for them, but if you pass the house with the goats, you're heading the right way. There are no doorbells, so stand out in the street and yell "Upe!" a bunch of times until I come out. Nothing to it.

Words Fail Me: Batshit Loco

When you learn a foreign language later in life *ahem*, words that sound similar can mess you up and make you sound like an idiot. When I lived in Hungary, I was constantly mixing up szőnyeg (carpet, rug) and szúnyog (mosquito). I would say dumb, but apparently amusing things like, "Urgh, these carpets keep biting me!" or "Take that mosquito out and shake it."

And you guys already know about my little mix up with preservantes and preservativos. But let's not dwell on that.

One time the esposo and I were down south, visiting one of my cuñados (really, it's so much easier than "brothers-in-law") and his family.  I love it there. They have a nice little porch where we hang out in hammocks with ice-cold beer of an evening. Ice cold because they literally put ice in the beer here. Not even kidding. I drink mine gringo style, no ice, because I don't like to water my beer. Just put that bad boy in the freezer for a bit.  Guys, I cannot express how much I'm loving the heat after the Seattle years. Where we live, in the Central Valley, it's actually not that hot. It's hot at my cuñado's house. You sweat. You take cold showers. You sleep in your skivvies with the fan on high, and kick off the sheet. And there is nothing like heat to make you appreciate the qualities of an ice-cold beer. Even estilo gringo, without the ice.

Hammock, beer, banana trees, good company ... what more do you need?

So after a long day of eating, relaxing, and drinking, we were all out on the porch for more drinking and relaxing. We'd just made our way back up from the river, where we'd gone to watch the sun set, commune with the neighbor's cattle, and get attacked by some pissed-off army ants after stepping on their anthill in flip-flops. Okay, that last part was only me, but whatever. It was a beautiful night.

So we're relaxing and sipping, watching the moon rise, when I notice something zipping back and forth overhead. A whole lot of somethings. Silent somethings. No cheerful birdsong or, in the case of parrots, obnoxious grawking. These were no feathered friends.

They were bats.

bats, lying in wait on the side of a tree

Now these were early days, my first year, back before that weird little tree in the farmer's squash field on the corner had bloomed with its seasonal batnip. I still don't know whether it was flowers or fruit that drew them, but that tree sang some kind of siren song that only those bats with their damned echolocation could hear. It was like crystal meth to a junkie. McDonald's to a gringo. You always hear about how bats don't bother people, how our fear of them is irrational, how they've gotten a bad rap. I believed all of that.

Until the little tree let loose its crack blossoms.

Those bats became territorial. Taking my dog, Batman (no relation), for his nightly constitutional was like running the gauntlet through a cloud of winged Cujos. In fact, wasn't it actually a bat that gave Cujo rabies in the first place? Poor Cujo probably lived near one of these trees. Those suckers actually dive-bombed me. They didn't give two shits about mosquitos, they were on the attack. Even Batman was a little spooked by his vespertilionine brethren, and he was a calm dog. I took to wearing a sweatshirt with the hood tied tight. After that first season, someone cut down the little tree before it bloomed again. I guess I wasn't the only bat bait out there. I was enormously relieved but also a little sad, because every once in a while, when the tree wasn't in bloom, an owl would perch there, watching me and Batman as we walked by, and I didn't see him anymore after that.

But back to our story, which takes place before the little tree bloomed and I learned what evil lurked in the hearts of bats. So I'm on the porch, soaking up the delicious heat, enjoying my cold beer in the moonlight, listening to the conversation from my hammock. An idyllic night if ever there were one. Wanting to make use of the animal vocabulary I'd just learned in my handy book, 6,000+ Essential Spanish Words, I nonchalantly say,

Look, bats!

Everyone stops talking to look at me. I helpfully point up at the sky, illustrating my keen observation.

A beat. Then everyone bursts out laughing. Great. I know what that means.

What did I say? 

They all chimed in, laughing their asses off, practically choking on their ice:

Look, womanizers!

Typical. Turns out the vocabulary book said murciélago ... not mujeriego.


-----------------
cuñado - brother-in-law  (koon-YAHD-oh)
cuñada - sister-in-law  (koon-YAHD-ah)
murciélago - bat: mammal,  not baseball.  (moor-see-AY-lah-goh)
mujeriego - womanizer  (moo-hayr-YAY-goh)

Words Fail Me: The Staff of Life

(In which our new series, Words Fail Me, is introduced, and Cowbell learns that pride goeth basically every damn day.)

Fold, mix, or knead?

Those of you who know me know that I'm not exactly channeling Suzy Homemaker, here. I wish I were one of those people who find cooking relaxing or fun, but I'm not. I cook because we need to eat. Moving to Costa Rica, however, has forced me to embrace my inner Suzy. I wish she were more like an inner Sybil who could just completely take over in the kitchen while I go to my inner quiet place for a nap, but no, nothing so convenient. It's all me in the kitchen.

Logically, I know that not eating processed food is a very good thing. When I'm not actually in the kitchen, I'm all about it. In theory. When it comes time to actually cook, though, logic me importa un bledo*. Once in a while, you just miss a good box or package. An easy mix. That frozen Indian food from Trader Joe's. Actually, you can find packaged food here at AutoMercado, aka the Gringo Grocery, so named because the prices reflect what desperate people with US dollars are willing to pay for that imported taste of home. Which is a lot, and why I only go once a year, before Christmas. 

Anyway, "from scratch" has become more than just a fuzzy concept that happens in other people's houses or in books about the olden days. In the States, making spaghetti sauce meant I sauteed onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, basil, and oregano in olive oil, then dumped in a jar of store-bought sauce, added a few personal touches like a bit of sugar to cut the acidity, a pinch of cinnamon, aaand done. "Homemade." What? It's not like I used Ragú. Here, jarred sauce is either expensive (again with the import taxes) or nasty, and let's not even talk about the national brand that comes in those tiny foil packages. Single serving size. For a gnome. So spaghetti sauce here means an assload of tomatoes. This is where I should write about blanching and peeling tomatoes. Yeah, screw that. Did it once. Everyone knows all the vitamins are in the skins, anyway.

My sauce is chock full o' vitamins.

Sweet tooth, pfft. I have a carb tooth.

Anyway, I'm kind of domestic now, y'all. I learned to make yogurt in my Crock-Pot. Yogurt, now. Come on, impressive, right? Fine. I was impressed. I make beans on the regular. Cannot believe I ever used canned black beans in the US. Guácala. Blech. That is my skeleton in the closet here, people; do not out me to the new fam. I also learned to make my own bread. I wasn't feeling that at first, but after a few months of eating "air bread" I warmed to the idea. (Hey, it's a tortilla society. You want good bread, go to Europe.)

Also, I found a no-knead recipe. That's what clinched it. 

The esposo, having been raised on air bread, was quite happy with this dense, warm, homemade manna from heaven, straight out of our oven. So we're talking about it over coffee and warm, buttered slices of deliciousness, and I say to him -- in Spanish, because it's Spanish week:

Homemade bread is so much better for us because it doesn't have preservatives. 

He stops chewing.  

Because it doesn't have what?

Preservatives. I don't use preservatives to make it.

I hope not. That doesn't even make sense.

At this point, I should've realized I'd committed yet another word fail, but these were early days, and I had yet to discover how the intricacies of Spanish lace the language like so much barbed wire. I charged on. 

Well, it does make sense if you want the bread to last longer.

 ... the bread?

Yeah. The bread in the store is full of preservatives. It lasts forever.

Oh. Preservatives. You mean preservatives.

Yeah. What did I say?

Condoms.

Oh. Preservativos means condoms. Preservantes means preservatives. Go figure. To this day, I just avoid those two words. Whoever invented Spanish did that shit just to mess with me. . 


-------------------
me importa un bledo:  it matters to me about as much as a blade of grass. I couldn't care less about it. 
guácala (WAH-kah-lah) - Gross. Blech. Disgusting. That's nasty. 

A Married Couple Walks into a Bar ...

wah wah what the ...?

When your marriage comprises two languages and two cultures, communication is challenging at best. At worst, it's a drunken conversation with Charlie Brown's teacher over a bad Skype connection.

The esposo and I switch languages every week. I know, weird system, but there's a reason. Turns out it's really hard to change a relationship language once it's set. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "relationship language", but there is, and apparently after a while it feels unnatural when you attempt to use the other, sidelined language. It feels awkward. Affected. Like group practice in high school French class.

Every dual-language couple we know has fallen into using only one language or the other because of this.

Some couples start out in one language, but then the situation changes and they need to start using the other. Maybe they move, or one person needs practice to get a job in the other language. A lot of people have told me they tried but couldn't make the shift. Others don't need to change their relationship language, but say it would be nice for communication to be more balanced, to be able to express themselves or use humor the way they can in their native language. Or just for the person doing life 24/7 in a foreign language to get a freaking break.

So the esposo and I decided from the get-go to use both languages. Now each of us knows what the fuck is going on about half the time, which is pretty good odds in a dual-language marriage.

jejeje

Sometimes I'm envious of English speakers whose relationship language is Spanish because they're more fluent than I am. They can argue in Spanish, they know all the slang. They can freaking tell jokes in Spanish.

So bitter.

Humor is the hardest thing in another language. Well, that and prepositions. It's a big deal for me. I was raised at the tit of sarcasm. I like funny people. I appreciate witty banter, a well-tooled phrase, penetrating conversation dripping with double entendre. Okay, maybe not quite that cheap and obvious, but you get my point. I like funny, but funny is hard in Spanish.

So it turns out I have two personalities. There's English Me and Spanish Me. I'm not even going to lie; Spanish Me is kind of a dud. English Me is fun at parties. Spanish Me, not so much. I mean, I'm not "unfun", I'm just kind of ... there.

Translating humor is a bitch. Take British and North American humor; even a shared language doesn't mean the culture translates. If you're North American, you either love or hate British humor. I find most of it brilliantly subtle and entertaining, but then there are those weird, over-the-top sit-coms bordering on slapstick, and it's like ... what the fuck is that about? And the Brits find our humor about as subtle as Jane Russell's bra. Now throw in a different language on top of the cultural divide.

Imagine you're at a party where half the guests are Seinfeld fans, and the other half, Three Stooges fans. Like that. That's me doing humor in Costa Rica.

If my friends were to describe English Me, humor would be mentioned. Granted, they'd probably make good use of the aforementioned witty turns of phrase to mock me and make me the butt of some excellent joke. Because that shit's funny. If my Spanish-speaking friends and acquaintances were to describe me, they'd probably say, "Es muy amable." Basically, "She's nice".

Right. Just put that on my tombstone. "She was nice."  Zzzzz.

... because a banana.

I'm making headway. You know how it is when a kid starts getting humor? Now he's got jokes. And he keeps starting over, like thirty-seven times, and he says "no, wait," and "okay, okay, so what happened was," and the punch line isn't that good, but the adults laugh because the little bastard has heart and doesn't quite realize he sucks, and there he is smiling, all pleased with himself, not noticing the adults  winking at each other over his head. Poor little fuck. Yeah, that's basically me, doing humor in Spanish.

It's an awkward stage.

So, as you may well imagine, the esposo and I sometimes have misunderstandings. Like every day. It happens often enough that I've decided to make these "moments in the life" a regular feature here. Lost in Translation, perhaps, though that's been done. What the Fuck Does That Even Mean? is also a possibility. Now that you all have the backstory, you're all set for the ensuing chortle-fest. At least try not to point. That's just taking it too far. This is another good reason that we switch it up every week, people -- who wants to always be the one who doesn't get it? Spread that suckage around.

So stay tuned for the first episode of What the Fuck Does That Even Mean? or whatever I decide to call it. (This is where the possum story comes in, for those who are breathlessly waiting.) Hey, I know you guys lost the This Old Motherfucking House series when I moved. I've got your back, amigos -- new show in town. And this one's cheaper. Well, except for my pride.

Language Arts

Using another language on vacation is a whole different thing from living your life in another language.  After a trip, sure, your brain is mush, but then you go back to handling life in English. And that's that.

Try moving, though.

There is no "going back to English". Your new normal is brain exhaustion. But you keep plugging along, hoping someday you won't sound like a third grader. You master the basics. But you soon realize that those happy chats with taxistas and market vendors are not fulfilling. You have opinions, you are interested. You miss feeling intelligent. You miss being heard. You want depth, an exchange of ideas beyond the weather and the price of papayas. You resolve to fill your days with deep and fascinating conversation. Enough of this Spanish 101 business.

It's time to level up, bitches.

But despite having a somewhat steady grasp on the nuts and bolts of the language, you are blissfully unaware of the number of factors at play here:

Focus
You know how in your native language you listen to things without even trying? You talk on the phone while you check Facebook. You text and watch a movie. Or you update your blog while belting out some sweet harmony with your boys, the Eagles. You listen to your fifth-grade teacher perfectly well while reading A Wrinkle in Time, hidden inside your science textbook. (Curse you, Mrs. Dunkle. Give me my book back. Still got an A on your dumb test.) Yeah, well, forget all that. That's over. If you want to know what the hell is going on now, you have to focus. Your mind cannot wander. Multitasking? No. Done. Thinking about what to make for dinner? Sorry, nope. Full concentration mode. All the freaking time.

Background Noise
If there is music or TV in the background, forget it. You know how a sound engineer can adjust the volume on different audio tracks? Bring up the lead vocals, bring down the drums, mute that guy who coughed? Yeah, well, that's not you. Your brain cannot yet filter different tracks in your new language, let alone adjust or mute tracks. You never even knew your brain was automatically filtering out noise in your own language, did you? Now it's all on one track. Everything. Music, the person talking to you, the convo at the next table, TV, traffic, barking dogs, ticking clocks -- just one big, cacophonous assault on your ears.  If you're a noise-sensitive person (hello), this is anxiety hell.

Groups
If more than one person is talking at once, same deal. Your brain cannot filter that shit. In a group, there is no pause for "your turn". This is not call and response, people. By the time you formulate a sentence, the point you wanted to address is three sentences back and someone else has the floor. You do a lot of smiling and nodding. Which you hate because you are not a passive, smiling nodder by nature. Groups are often in places with -- you guessed it -- background noise, as well as our next factor: alcohol.

Alcohol

There is mother-tongue tolerance and there is new-language tolerance. Never the twain shall meet. You have a window of opportunity. One or two drinks: you're killing it. You're confident, you're conjugating, you're clever. Hola, mi compa, dónde está el baño, te ves guapa mi amor, siempre tomo el bus los miércoles, tengo un lapiz, regálame una birra, mae*!  You are in the zone. Okay, stop drinking now. Trust me, this is the best your language skills get. Order that next drink, and it's all downhill. It will hit fast, too. Like mid-sentence. Do not miss your window.

Accent
You know how in English, talking to someone from Boston is a world apart from talking to Honey Boo-Boo? How Scottish English is just a wee bit different from Texas English? Same thing. Costa Rican (tico) Spanish was, for me, a difficult accent. It's a river of softlyconnectedsoundsrushing past my ears rather than clear.distinct.separate.words. Then there are regional accents. You understand one guy easily, turn to his buddy and ... nada. Awkward. I quickly discoverd that no podía entender ni papa. Literally, "I couldn't even understand a potato". Which brings me to the next factor:

Slang
Every Spanish-speaking country has its own slang. I never know whether I'm learning standard Spanish or tico Spanish until I talk to someone from another country and they don't know what the hell I'm on about. Then there's pachuco, which is the really street tico slang. My husband is a librarian. I'm not very street in Spanish.

You

DeviantArt: panelgutter

If you are tired, stressed, sick, or angry, you can't even. This is why I still fail at arguing in Spanish, which is a pity because that shit would be satisfying as hell, pendejos. It's exasperating because the times when you are stressed, sick, tired, or mad are exactly when you need communication to be effortless, but nooo, your brain just shuts down. Access denied. That bastard retreats into its skull-cave to hibernate and leaves you to deal with the situation. Brainlessly.

Other factors
-- When people mumble, turn their head away, or cover their mouths.
-- Volume. Your brain can't fill in missing pieces like in English.
-- PA systems and microphones.
-- The phone. You can't see gestures, facial expressions, or the person's mouth, and sometimes audio quality sucks. If I don't pick up, take the hint. Leave a message.  Better yet, text me.



So it's a process. Sometimes it's just easier to smile and nod.

It feels like doing life with your brain all tangled up in giant bedsheets.

Sometimes it actually feels claustrophobic, and you go all spastic-freakout in your head, trying to mentally Bruce Lee your way out of the tangled covers so you can fucking breathe, but they're not real. You can't throw them off. The only way out is to calm your ass down and keep trying. Which is maddeningly slow and frustrating.

But it's also fun and satisfying with a lot of fuck, yeah! to it, like when ...

• you realize you just watched the news ... and totally got it. 
• you have a conversation without thinking about the language. 
• you've gone from "Rains. No parasol" to "If I'd known it was going to rain, I would've brought my umbrella." 
• some guy catcalls you and you cut him off without breaking stride. 
• you can read novels. (Yes, of course with the Kindle dictionary. What am I, Merriam-Webster?)
• you can finally talk to someone in a crowded bar with music playing. (What is it with the 80s music? That shit just stays popular in other countries.)

Right?  Fuck, yeah. That's what keeps you plodding forward. Incrementally.

So listen up, friends. When you hear people speaking with an accent and making mistakes, don't you judge them. That shit is hard. Their brains can never relax. Their brains are probably fucking exhausted. And if they sound like a third grader, do not assume they're not intelligent. They could be a rocket scientist in their own language. Maybe smile at them. Maybe ask them what they think. Catch their eye. Maybe pause your own mouth for a minute so they can arrange their thoughts into words you can understand. Maybe include them if you're in a group and they're smiling and nodding a lot.



I started this draft almost four years ago. Now I can say "I speak Spanish" without feeling like a fraud. A lot of the factors above aren't such a big deal anymore. I'm not going to lie, though; sometimes they still kick my ass. People ask if I'm fluent, and I never know how to answer. According to criteria online, I guess I am. Sort of. Maybe. In my own mind ... um ... no, I don't feel fluent. Hey, perfectionist here. Blessing and curse, people.

My accent is getting better. Thankgawd. What I wouldn't give to have a sexy accent. Italian, Spanish, French, Hungarian. Face it, of all the world's accents, the gringo* accent has got to be among the ugliest.  We are the nails on the chalkboard of accents. And that's what I'm working with here, folks.  No matter how fluent I become, that accent will still be there, assaulting Costa Rican ears like an enthusiastic child learning violin. On an out-of-tune instrument. After guzzling Mountain Dew.

Last week, someone asked if I was French after we'd been talking a while. (I know, right?) Seeing my expression, he amended it. Swedish? Not ... Dutch? I said I was from the States, and bless his heart, he was surprised. Apologized! I was like, nooo, no apology necessary, good sir; just let me shine those boots up for you and build you this pedestal real quick. Hey, I know what the accent of my people sounds like. I'm under no illusions. I totally took that shit as a compliment.

Granted, it was probably just in comparison with the hordes of gringos who move here and never learn to speak beyond Yoh kee-ay-roh Tack-oh Bell, but still.  I'll take it.

---------------------------

*Gringo/gringa is not offensive or derogatory in Costa Rica. Took me a while to get that, but it's just what people say here. No negative connotation at all.  Now, if someone calls you yanqui ... okay, not good. 

*Mae = dude.  It's like güey in Mexican Spanish. 

*Alcohol-induced, in-the-zone Spanish: "Hey, my friend, where is the bathroom, you're looking good, baby, I always take the bus on Wednesday, I have a pencil, bring me a beer, dude!"

Adventures in Spanish Class

So I'm taking two classes this quarter, including Spanish. Given the work I'm doing with the school district and the commissioner position with the city, I figured I need to get off my ass and hablar. My German and Hungarian aren't doing me much good these days.

Please. Look at me, acting like I ever could ever actually speak Hungarian.

This is the first time I've tried to learn a language without living in a country where that language is spoken. Immersion is the way to go, folks. Also, having learned other languages is an advantage because concepts are familiar, but it's a disadvantage when the teacher calls on you, and you  pop out with something like, "Igen, tengo harom Kinderek," or some other fucked-up linguistic amalgam.

The instructor is excelente. He's a native Spanish speaker who doesn't baby you or move at a snail's pace. Thankgawd. My kids' high school Spanish teacher was this white lady with the absolute worst gringa accent ever. Like when you jam pencils in your ears to make it stop. School districts won't hire qualified native speakers but will hire less-proficient people to teach a language. The only native speaker in my district is the Chinese teacher, and I bet you $10 that's only because they couldn't find a non-Chinese person who speaks passable Chinese. Sounds kind of like affirmative action for white folks.

But I digress. So, my class. It's amazing, the comments that fall out of people's mouths. The instructor sometimes mutters under his breath that he only has X number of years before he can retire. He gives "cultural points" for extra credit. You have to write about one of his recommended books, films, restaurants or dance places.

I wish he'd never assigned that shit.

Classmate 1 (raising hand): So, for the cultural points ... does Azteca count?

No. Not even kidding. But that was fine compared to what came later.

Classmate 2 (to me): Well, for my cultural points, I had a coffee date with a Spanish man!

Me: (ohmyfuckinggod) I ... didn't realize you had a friend from Spain.

Classmate 2: Oh, he's not from Spain! I wish!

Me: (here we go) So, he's not Spanish.  He speaks Spanish.

Classmate 2: (blank stare) Um ...

Me: If he's not from Spain, he's not Spanish.

Classmate 2: Well, he's ... where is he from? Oh! Brazil! He's from Brazil.

Me: Brazil? And he speaks Spanish? That's interesting ...

Classmate 2: Well, not really, seeing as he's from Brazil!

Me: They speak Portuguese in Brazil.

Classmate 2: (blank stare) Well ... I don't know about all that, but a date with a Spanish man should work for cultural points! And, he was muy caliente!

Then there was the time she slipped me a note about our instructor that said, "He's such a Latin macho! But I like him!!" Yeah, I'm sure the professor will be thrilled that he meets with your approval in spite of his alleged machismo. The reason he has been pegged as such is that he insists on proper grammar and pronunciation, and doesn't do a lot of hand-holding.

 I'm thinking that makes him a "good instructor" rather than a "Latin macho", but what do I know.

So I go to this study group the other day. I was invited by a woman who speaks English fluently after only two and a half years in-country. Spanish will be her fourth language. I figure she knows how the hell to learn a language, I'm studying with her. Another woman in the group, a self-professed conservative Republican proceeded to trash President Obama, informing the younger students that the President is a socialist who's gotten the country into debt. Yeah, honey, I think the last eight years had something to do with that, actually. Anyway, she had these gems to offer:

Classmate 3: Well, my introduction to this culture was dating a Spanish man for five years. I was practically a member of his family! But I never learned the language.

Me: (Again with the Spanish man.) So ... he was from Spain?

Classmate 3: Well, he was half Mexican and half Apache on his father's side, so you know ... [waves hand, dismissively] but his mother, she was born in Spain, so ...

Me: So he was Mexican as well.

Classmate 3: Well ... anyway, you know how most Mexicans have, you know, Aztec or Maya background? Well, he had Apache, so he had the very defined cheekbones. He never cut his hair; his father told him never to cut it because he was a warrior, you know. I got in touch with him some time later, and asked if his hair was still long, and he was all [mimes annoyance] "Yeeesss...", and I was like, dude, you're 55 years old now!

Me: That's his culture, it doesn't have an expiration date.

Classmate 3: Oh, totally! I know! He was just beautiful! So exotic! Anyway, the reason I'm taking this class is so I can move somewhere and teach English as a Second Language. I want to get certified to teach Spanish too.

Another classmate: Really? Where?

Classmate 3: Well, I lived in Arizona for years, but never even crossed the border, because you know, [dismissive wave] Mexico, I just didn't care. But Spain or Argentina ... I'd love to go there! Yep, much more interested in Spain or South America than Central America or Mexico. But I wouldn't say that to my friend!

Everyone else: ...

Classmate 3: In fact, another friend -- he's a very wealthy Argentinian -- actually said to me [mimes snootyassedness] "You're speaking with a Mexican accent!"  But I wouldn't say that to my friend, the one I was telling you about!

Me: What friend? (wondering how this chick is picking up a Mexican accent when our instructor is Puerto Rican)

Classmate 3: Oh, my friend who helps me with my assignments. She checks all my homework for me. She's Mexican.

Are you fucking kidding me? So ... your friend is good enough to check your homework, work on your assignments with you, and basically help you get an A in the class, but you don't want to pick up her accent or visit her country? In fact, you want to learn her language in order to move to one of the countries with a higher population of what you consider white people, and get paid to teach -- probably in a position where your friend, the native speaker who helped your ass pass this class, wouldn't be hired.

 What the hell, people?

Needless to say, she clammed up when I started up about how great it is that our instructor is a native speaker, because some schools pass over the native speakers to hire gringos, and then you don't get good instruction, because they're, you know, [dismissive wave] not as qualified.

I'm going to go off before I hit Spanish III, I just know it.