Phrase-a-day Spanish must be going pretty well for us. Last night at the Y, after all the swim lessons were done, I called the kids several times to put on their coats and then, finally, tried one of the phrases we’ve learned in the last few weeks: "Oscar! Ponte la chaqueta!"
Oscar laughed and came right over to put on his jacket, reciting the next phrase from the tape: "…la gorra, los guantes, Y las botas!" He said it with exactly the same intonation as the tape, including the longish pauses for listening and repeating. The Spanish-speaking women who work in the "kids’ gym," along with two of the children, burst out laughing, probably at our miserable pronunciation.
"How am I doing?" I asked Ana with a grin, and she said, "That’s pretty good."
Here’s what we can say so far in Spanish, after three weeks or so: It’s snowing. It’s winter. Can I go out to play? Yes, but it’s cold, you know. Put on your jacket, your hat, your gloves, and your boots. Okay. Here are my hat, my jacket, my boots. But my glove! I lost it. I can’t find it. Wear my glove, it’ll help you. Outside! I make angels in the snow. I make snowballs. I make a snowman. I go sledding.
The incident at the Y made me remember how as a second-grader I learned a little bit of French from a French-teaching machine in the school library (an analog precursor of the Rosetta Stone software that displayed scenes from a filmstrip on a backlit screen, went from item to item with a loud ka-chunk, and used, I believe, a type of punch-card mechanism). I used to wish that a little girl my age who spoke only French would move in next door to me, and then I would be able to talk to her. I fantasized about saying, "Je m’appelle Erin," and then pointing to her and saying, "Je m’appelle…" so that she would know that I wanted to know her name. (The French-teaching machine was big on "the red balloon" and "the yellow dog" and short on conversational grammar.)
I went on to study French for years and got quite good at it. Fat lot of good it does me now, of course.
What’s funny is that, now that my kids and I are finally trying to learn a little Spanish, my neighbors on three sides are all native Spanish speakers, all families with young children. It’s the same situation I dreamed of as a seven-year-old! Except that some how I’ve lost the excitement of trying to communicate, or the sense of the exotic, or something. I’ve never tried to say hello, or anything else, except in English. I’m embarrassed to try. I’m afraid of being laughed at. How did that happen? What kind of example is this sending to my kids?
Resolution for the spring and summer: Sit on the front porch more often, and say hola to the neighbors.
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