Mundane Details

“I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.”—Michael Bolton, Office Space

I have said many times before in this blog that I have my good days and my bad days speaking Spanish with my patients. You know by now that I am not a native Spanish speaker. I grew up with English as the sole language of the household. I started learning Spanish in the seventh grade by memorizing simple vocabulary lists. I took more and more advanced studies throughout high school and college, until the real learning began with practical use: speaking with the patients I encountered during medical school. That was my introduction to medical Spanish, which is a unique language in and of itself. It took many years to get where I am today, and still I have told you I am no where near perfect. I have a professional, medical fluency. Any situation outside medicine I can certainly communicate my way through, but a native speaker will know I’m not native.

I don’t know why that bothers me, but it does. There are days when I’ll be talking to a patient, and I’ll incorrectly use a word I’ve used a million times before correctly.  Like, I’ll make a feminine word masculine. Or my verb conjugation will be wrong. Or I’ll say something in the simple present tense that should have been in the subjunctive. I’ll completely miss the tip-off word in the sentence that tells me it should be in the subjunctive.

Or, I’ll mispronounce a word that I’ve said a million times before with the correct pronunciation. Or I’ll forget a word and say it in English. Sometimes I’ll even accidentally say it in Croatian (although, that hasn’t happened recently, as, my studies of my husband’s primary language have fallen to the wayside in recent months).  I recall the other day I said the word one hundred to a patient as ciento. The patient corrected me. Apparently sometimes it’s ciento, but other times it’s cien.  For the longest time I’ve been saying, Ponga la frente contra de la barra to indicate to a patient that he should put his forehead against the slit lamp bar. I figured la frente, or the front/forehead is always la frente, so when I had to tell a patient to hand a slip of paper in at the front desk in the office, I said Puede entregar el papel en la frente.  The patient replied, en el frente. OK. I’ll go with it. But I don’t understand the logic behind it.

I feel like, as far as I’ve come in Spanish, I’m somehow still far behind. Granted, some days are better than others. Some days the words come more fluidly and correctly. But other days my Spanish speaking is like a very slow and painful depilatory session. No anesthetic cream. And no warning when the rips and tears will come.

I thought I was the only person who feels this way, until I came across a blog recently called “Y Mucho Más” by an American from Indiana named Kaley who moved to Spain in 2009 to work as an English teacher and to learn Spanish. In the particular entry that caught my attention, “Some Days I Hate Speaking Spanish”, she describes situations that I talk about repeatedly in my blog, almost as if she read my mind. She remarks: “There are good days, when the words flow and people don’t have to wait for me to spit out the word...” and “..there are days when I feel competent and fluent.” But she goes on to say that, “...lately a lot of my days have been bad days. Why? It’s hard-telling.”  She adds, “Whenever I’m excited or angry or emotional or sad, I want to speak in English--because the words mean more to me.”

It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Especially when there are many people on the internet and elsewhere, who have written blogs and books which always make language learning seem fun! exciting! easy! and quick! But language learning is like any form of learning. If it’s going to stick with you long-term, then it is going to take time. Time to assimilate it. Hear it-- read, write and speak it. Time to succeed in it and make mistakes in it. Time to learn from those mistakes and sometimes make those mistakes over and over until the learning becomes like a painful badge of linguistic courage.

I have to remind myself of this every time I have a bad day in Spanish and get down on myself about it. I can’t keep criticizing myself for messing up the  “one mundane detail” that differentiates me from the native speaker.  I have to remember that it’s the messing up that’s going to get me where I want to be. I just have to believe it. After all, I’m better today in Spanish than I was years ago. If logic holds true, then I should be better still tomorrow.

References

Kaley. “Some Days I Hate Speaking Spanish.” Web blog post. Y Mucho Más. WordPress. 7 Mar. 2014. Web 26 Nov. 2016.

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