When I met Training Host Mom Rosa Maria, she was very patient and spoke slowly. I told her Spanish was ‘difícil’ for me before I knew the phrase “me cuesta.” And she told me “pero está bien porque tiene un base.” And I said: “Que?” but I should have said “cómo?” and she said “base” (bah-say) again and tapped on the table where we ate lunch: “base.” I smiled and tilted my head back: “ohhh.” Which also “oh” isn’t Spanish. What do I say? “Ayyyyy.” “Arrr” like a confused pirate? “Ehhhhh” No. None of the vowels are helping me.
But those first 2 months with the training host family.. 9 weeks of unfinished sentences and cold showers (because I didn’t know how to work the shower handle correctly). I’d start out with the thoughts I’d want to share and I’d practice them first in my head. I’d start out with a running leap and then I’d fall in the sand bed and dust myself off and look to my host family for help: “Did you get that?”
When I come to the dead end of my verbal ability, I would continue with gestures and my face would try to express what my tongue couldn’t. I was in a language maze and I stopped to enjoy the view of my own powerlessness. I gotta say, I learned a lot in the space in between. A lot about grace and vulnerability and my own need for help and how we’re really all one and I’d think about language and the difference between English and Spanish and how words have trailed from the Latin origin but they still make so much more sense in Spanish than in English. The US has played too many rounds of checkers with words. For example: how do foot and food have different ‘o’ sounds? And why is the ‘Ch’ in Charlie pronounced differently than the ‘ch’ in school?
And it put me at the mercy of my host family. So many gaps and holes and distance between Spanish II and my life now. I remember the heavy wooden desks and I’m trying to summon what I learned in those desks. . And I knew most of the things I was saying were wrong to begin with. So. Well they weren’t “wrong” let me not be so harsh. But I knew that I wasn’t saying them correctly.
But one thing I realized, beyond the fact that learning a new language is hard, is that I have been super hard on English-learners growing up in the States. Even folks with accents who can’t say everything like a native English-speaker can, I would marginalize them without even realizing it. But now I’m in their camp, we’re on the same team playing the same round. But my team, whoever they’ve been, have just been so much more welcoming to me than me to them. We make so much of anyone with a foreign accent in the US. It would hurt my feelings a lot to hear my host family imitate my accent!
And I’m sure they’re very aware of my accent. I don’t sound like a native speaker, because I am not a native speaker.
Thankfully I’ve gotten better at finishing sentences, however imperfect. I am trying and that’s pretty exciting!