After I finished A-100, I knew that we were going to Tijuana and that I needed to learn Spanish. Honestly, the idea of learning another language - especially Spanish - has been an aspiration that I think I shared with most average Americans. After all most of us know a little Spanish because we have been exposed to it here and there, and given the large number of Latinos that have learned English, I assumed that it would be an easy language to learn. Now I know my brain is older than I had thought.
After three years of high school Spanish, I remember Sr. Minoff telling me not to take Spanish IV because I was probably the worst Spanish student he had had in his almost 20 years of teaching. I was crushed then, but after three years of reading and memorizing boring case law during law school, I figured that I could learn anything if I put my mind to it.
Flash forward to three months ago when I was given my informal Spanish assessment. Basically, I was to have a short conversation with a native Spanish speaker who would guesstimate at how long I would need to study Spanish to reach the required level. Now a full course of Spanish at FSI is about 24 weeks for someone who has never studied Spanish before, but I figured that I could shave a few weeks off that because I could say all the things that Dora the Explorer can, as well as order a beer and find the bathroom. I wasn't overly optimistic, and I remembered what Sr. Minoff had told me. After about a minute and a half of me stuttering and looking confused, the assessment came to an abrupt halt with the instructor telling me that there was no reason for her to torture me anymore. I got a big fat zero in Spanish. Then I got scheduled for 27 weeks of language training, a full three weeks more than any of my coworkers. I felt a little like Rodney Dangerfield - no respect.
Now I have to get to a 3 in speaking and a 3 in reading on the FSI scale of grading, with a native speaker begin assessed at a 5. A 1+ or a 2 is about where the average person would be after getting a BA in Spanish. A 3 basically requires me to be able to explain complicated abstract concepts to non-English speakers in their own language. For example, the Electoral College, Federalism, or the U.S. Criminal Justice System. Despite having worked with some great people at the Public Defender's Office in Georgia and having graduated law school, I would find it difficult to do those things in English.
So I am throwing myself into learning Spanish. After all, they say that the primary factor in being successful at learning a new language is commitment. I have six hours of study at FSI every day plus BBC Mundo news and the occasional telenovella on Univision, and my life is pretty much half in Spanish. Of course, I could do more, but I don't have the guts to start trying to talk to the Salvadorian clerk at the Shell station down the street in Spanish yet, and based on my last few classes, I might have made some pretty serious cultural faux paus--like when I tried to say that my previous instructor liked soccer players but actually implied that he wanted to hop in the sack with them. (To be fair he did keep showing us half naked pictures of them on the internet, but it's possible that those are the only good pictures that are actually available).
Lisa has been a good sport. I mean she is recovering from having a baby, and I keep walking around the apartment mumbling random words in Spanish and watching half naked women jump around and scream at each other, on Spanish language television, of course. And she even let me play a politically incorrect Mexican Bingo game with Jacob. My latest Spanish instructor gave it to me specifically to practice with Jacob, but I'm not so sure that he needs to learn all the words presented. Yes, it has child friendly words like frog, flag, and moon, but other entries like, drunkard, skull, and death, will be more helpful in my line of work. You know, like when I'm trying to get the drunk Americans out of Tijuana jails.
I have even tried to talk to our housekeeper in Spanish, but after a few minutes she decided that it was more convenient to speak with me in her broken English than to let me keep butchering her native tongue. Fortunately, the conversation that I started with the Hispanic window washer outside of our class went much better, but we had the assistance of our instructor. Jose from El Salvador was a good sport to talk to us while hanging 3 stories above the ground by only a couple of ropes.
So, the final verdict is that after six weeks of Spanish, I had my evaluation and scored a 1+ (nearly a 2 according to the grader) in speaking and between a 1 and a 1+ in reading. That's backwards from most other people. However, given the fact that anyone who has ever met me knows that I run my mouth most of the time, it shouldn't be a surprise that I scored better in the speaking portion of the evaluation.
So for now, I'm where I should be, but Lisa and the boys have a lot of catching up to do before we can hit the big town of Tijuana and find the burro painted like a zebra or go see an authentic bull fight.
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