Right now I am in a town called Begur on the Costa Brava area of Spain. We are staying in a villa that we found through VRBO. My folks are here too, having arrived in Barcelona earlier in the week.
Back in 1987, I lived in Mexico, went to school and learned to speak Spanish. For four of the last five years, I've used it to communicate with my housekeeper, and others in Houston, Texas.
In the last year, I've used Spanish to influence my learning of French. The languages are very similar.
Now that I am in a country where Spanish is the main language (well, Catalan anyway), I have discovered I can't speak it at all any more. I keep coming up with French words when I try to communicate in Spanish.
And then I try to correct myself, and mix up my English. Every time I try to say "Excuse me," it comes out in French, and I CANNOT get my Spanish accent back. And at the end, when I try to apologize for being so confusing, I say "Desole. I mean pardon. I mean excuse moi. Oh hell."
And I can't keep from adding "sil vous plait" on the end of every request.
So now, I can't speak in three languages! Arrgh!
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Oh I'm laughing over this post! At least you know more than one language - that's more than I can say for myself!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to tell you that I'm going to England in June for my cousin's wedding but Chris and I are also going to Paris for a few days. I would LOVE to get together with you either to go sight-seeing or have lunch or coffee or go out to dinner or whatever. I think we are there from June 7-11.