tapas y tacos

Currently listening to: atravesao – Elsa y Elmar

¿Cómo negar lo que se siente bien?
Ahora te miro y solo encuentro
Tu aliento mientras bailamos lento
Ven y déjame mostrarte lo que
Tengo por perder
Dame lo tuyo, yo lo cuido bien
Estamos flotando en el viento
Sintiendo una cosa que no entiendo pero
Es que te tengo atravesao’
No paro de pensarte

Sueña, explora, descubre.

For the first three years of learning Spanish, my educators were from Spain, so we spoke Castilian.  It almost sounded like I had a lisp but it was so cute.  She had the class singing Julio and Enrique Iglesias songs in Spanish.  I loved it.  I had acquaintances who were from Spain and my cousin married a dude from the Canary Islands (which is a different dialect) so they let me practice speaking with them.

Straight away, my Mexican friends knew that my Spanish was different.  I was used to saying “vosotros” instead and the words were different.  Whenever I spoke Spanish to my monolingual Hispanic patients, they looked at me as if I had another head growing out of my neck. I tried to conform so that it was easier for us to communicate, Órale, así es ok…and then the Puerto Rican friends entered the chat.  I also had a boss who was Cuban + Panamanian and that was a trip.  Must she speak so fast? Fuck me.

And then I had a German teacher teach us Español Mexicano (she was trilingual) and she had us singing Right Said Fred (Soy Tan Sexy) and Beck (Soy Un Perdedor) in Spanish.  Weird, but progressive?  The former FBI agent, who was a gringa, taught us proper etiquette and we would role play different scenarios.  She also had us read Don Quixote and watch the movie too.  I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out because it was very difficult and it was taking so long to read.  NGL, I didn’t finish reading it all, I had to get the SparkNotes for it because it made my brain hurt. A quote that I’ll remember forever, “Mientras se gana algo no se pierde nada”.

Then for the remaining years that I spent learning Spanish were from professors who were Mexican-Americans.  This came in handy because a majority of my friends now (who speak Español) are from Mexico and frequently invite me to go on holiday with them down South.

Now my Spanish is all over the place and a hot mess.  I don’t even know what it is anymore, jijiji…ayudame.