Bilingual…Sort Of

 I have a memory of being very young and speaking gibberish to my grandparents. I told them I was “speaking Spanish” (hablando espanol would be the proper term). I’m sure they thought it was cute and funny.

That was my attempt early on to fit in with the half of my family that hailed from Argentina. My grandparents immigrated from Buenos Aires in the late fifties and they made a comfortable life for themselves and raised three boys (my dad is their middle child). They’re not of typical “Spanish” blood: my Papu is Danish, while my Nana is full blooded Italian. 

Argentina is a melting pot like America, mostly infused with European heritage and culture (Argentina has its own unique culture, and it’s romantic and beautiful). My grandparents looked “white” by all means, but they speak the language, so to me they are “Spanish” people. 

This means that, yes, they danced the Tango, listened to Tango music, drank mate, and ate homemade milanessa with chimichurri made from scratch. They rooted for their home country in soccer games and adored Maradona and Messi. They were at the same time very proud of their earned American citizenship, working very hard to come here, and proud of this country and all it has to offer —that is if you put in the effort. 

And they did. They even learned English.

I have been told that English is up there as one of the hardest languages to learn, with Chinese and Russian, with all of its irregularities and idioms. 

They speak English very well, although with strong accents. The point I am trying to get at is that while they master two languages, I have always desperately wanted to speak Spanish like them, and through all my efforts I still cannot speak it fluently.

It is one of the Romance languages (which is why it sounds so beautiful), like French and Italian, which in its essence is not linguistically complicated and actuallty straightforward once you grasp the basics. 

I have basic knowledge, like to say what I had for dinner and where is the bathroom ( to be honest, I have better comprehension than that. I can pick up the gist, or phrases rather. While I possess a warehouse of nouns, I don’t have a grasp on verbs and their tenses). I can semi hold a conversation with my nana, who recently refuses to speak in English in her old age, so I am left deciphering fluent Castellano while nodding my head in agreement like an idiot. She treats me like I know the language, and has been doing it for years. She always encouraged me to practice (“practica hace la perfeccion!”), even when I was shy about it. 

I spent many summers at my grandparents,“mis abuelos,” home when I was young, exposed to casual conversations and full church services in Spanish at the Kingdom Hall, which my Nana gave me and my brother picture books and hard candies to get us through. Nana always spoke commands and phrases to me in Spanish, like “pone lo hielo” (put ice in my drink), “veni aqui” (come here), “prova la” (taste this), or the more commanding “toma la!” (Just eat it! My nana was always cooking and feeding everybody every day for years. God bless her). 

I was always jealous of my sister who could actually converse with my grandparents in their native language (and refused to reveal to me what she was saying). Once she mastered Spanish she moved on to French in high school. I took Spanish in high school and college, and I did really well in it, my teachers saying my pronunciation and accent was perfect, which of course I picked up from my nana. She always said she spoke the Castellano from Spain, not like the Mexican or cuban Spanish full of slang. 

So I can read it from a book like I am a native speaker, but what exactly I am saying is lost on me (can you be half lingual or semi lingual? Does it count for anything? (Which is why some of my most used phrases are “no comprendo” and “no entiendo”)).

And my father, he grew up speaking Spanish and only learned English when he went to kindergarten. However he never taught us kids to speak it, instead using it as a secret code when he was on the phone (which upset my mother). So my older sister is fluent (god rest her beautiful soul), I am half literate, and my younger brother has no interest (good for him). Seems like it vanished down us line of children. And that makes me sad (maybe it’s time for me to give it up and just focus on English? Never!).

I really wish I had taken this endeavor more seriously, although i think there is still time, even though it is better and easier to absorb these things as a child. Oh well. My college professor said most people need immersion to internalize it. That means going somehwere where they only speak it and making yourself master it with no choice. I like that idea. Maybe my nana is trying to immerse me, lol.

Since I sort of speak it, I can’t say I’m bilingual on job applications. That would be lying. I can though tell my nana on the phone I am coming to see her on Sunday: yo voy a venir a visitar te Domingo. It gets the message across.

To me it’s a beautiful language (perhaps part of its beauty is its mystery) that I would love to truly learn. And it will always be personal to me, as my family’s mother tongue and love language. 

Te veo and Ciao!