Barely Comprehensible

My exposure to different languages is pretty limited, having struggled to learn Afrikaans (which was the 2nd official language in South Africa during high school) and reached a point where I understand Afrikaans very well but still get tongue tied if I have to say more than a couple of sentences.   

 

In my 20s I taught at a school where the native tongue of most of the teachers and all of the students was Xhosa.  Without the tools we have today for language learning my language skill only reached the point where I could greet, ask some basic questions and say things like “what are you doing?” or “you’re making a noise” - basic phrases that a teacher might need to know.  

 

I wouldn't really call myself fluent in either of these languages and I suppose I have taken those failures to become fluent as a sign that my aptitude for learning a new language is not high - though it is also true that I treated learning them as a utility - and therefore learning only as much as I needed to get by.

So learning Spanish is entirely new, having been prompted by Anne who was in turn inspired by our twin sons when they both became fluent after living for some time in Central and South America.

Anne and I started using Duolingo daily - she’s been doing it daily for almost  3 years and I am getting closer to 2 years and we have both been taking online lessons with amazing Spanish teachers (fist one from Peru and the second from Guatemala) but neither of us have been able to put any of this to practical use until this, the first of our trips after selling our
house.  You'd think after so many years of daily practice we'd be able to speak it, but in truth the lessons are maybe 5 to 15minutes a day which doesn't really give you more than a little exposure.

So it turns out that my first essential interaction in Spanish was at the airport after we arrived in Spain.  Our house sitting host had insisted that the train to Gandia left from the airport but we could only find a metro (subway) line and not the inter-city train.  We tried at the metro ticket counter and at information but the girl at information handed us a map and pointed at the metro signs but the metro attendant was too harried and impatient to help us.

We decided to go back to the cafe and order coffee and a sandwich and it struck me that, since I was the only one in the line the cashier might be able to help.  In halting Spanish I managed to get out a plaintive “where be train to Gandia, please?” (or something like that) and, after correcting my pronunciation of Gandia, she scribbled on a note the name of a metro station that we had to get to to catch the train we needed.  It was 11 stops away from the airport which made us wonder when our house-sitting host had last used the train.  We used google maps to confirm that after exiting the metro we had to walk across the street to the overland train station in Valencia.

It seems inconceivable, but after a mere 10 days we are making much more confident use of Spanish - in particular after ordering coffee and toast day after day at the same Bar in our adjacent town.  No one here speaks English, though they will use an occasional word in English if we look as though we are drowning in incomprehension.

The waitress, who has been very patient (if a little formal) with us, got a little agitated on Thursday when I boldly walked up at 12:30 and asked her if it was too late for to order lunch.  She gave us a perfunctory “No lunch” followed by a “only Puchero” (all in Spanish) which she explained is a soup with meat in it.  Anne and I slunk off and came back home for a sandwich for lunch.

The next day I asked her to explain to us how meals work in Spain and she gave us a similar description to what our house sitting  hosts had given but with more details on the restaurant times.  I asked if she could describe some other breakfast dishes to us and when she brought me a Chivito which is a baguette with chicken, egg and bacon (along with the complimentary house salad served at breakfast).

I told her that we were getting hungry after a week if eating only “tostadas con queso” (toast with cheese).  

She had a good laugh at that and was instantly warm and friendly, patting me on the arm and having a bit more of a conversation.

She asked where we were from because we didn’t speak Spanish with an English accent which was quite satisfying to hear.

Today we stopped for coffee before going on a long walk and a group of men who stopped on a bicycle ride asked Anne if she would photograph them.  After she did they decided to offer us some of their Moscatel (sherry made from the Moscatel grape) and struck up a conversation with us - they are involved in the Valencian orange export business and told us that they sold to South Africa and had worked in America (San Diego) for a few years as part of the orange export business.  Their English was a little better than our Spanish but we kept talking to them in Spanish as best we could.

Not long after a man sat down next to us and also started talking to us.  His dog, he said, heard us speaking English to each other and he had a favorite person who visited who also spoke English.

If is amazing how these little exchanges work, trying our best to be barely comprehensible…. and succeeding!