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bloodyrosemccoyToday I kept getting interrupted from my book-shelvin’ duties by a stream of folks needing desk help. Normally I send folks off to the actual desk, since it drives me nuts when people try to circumvent the desk queue by approaching me when I’m doing something not-desky, on the far end of the counter, with my back to the computer, which has a sign that says CHECK IN ONLY, but today I was the only person who spoke even a modicum of Spanish.
So whenever anyone came up hesitantly with some variation of “… speak … Spanish?”, I’d cheerfully tell them, “I speak Bad Spanish!”, and we’d be off and running.
Sometimes I wish I could hear myself in Spanish the way a native speaker does, because I expect I sound hilarious. “IF YOU HAVE COMPUTER, YOU NO NEED BOOK. YOU NO HAVE COMPUTER? OKAY. YOU WAIT. I GET BOOK.”
After a while I get better, though I am pretty sure I’ve already got a few fossilized bits of Bad Spanish that it’d take a lot of work to get rid of.
It’s endlessly fascinating how language seems to work after that first cutoff point of small-childhood development. I have studied Spanish for years and can read it easily. But to understand spoken Spanish, and produce it, takes a definite shifting of brainmeats, and that’s not easy.
Fortunately, this job means I’m getting lots of practice! Language theory is great, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling that you’ve just managed to communicate in a second language.
So whenever anyone came up hesitantly with some variation of “… speak … Spanish?”, I’d cheerfully tell them, “I speak Bad Spanish!”, and we’d be off and running.
Sometimes I wish I could hear myself in Spanish the way a native speaker does, because I expect I sound hilarious. “IF YOU HAVE COMPUTER, YOU NO NEED BOOK. YOU NO HAVE COMPUTER? OKAY. YOU WAIT. I GET BOOK.”
After a while I get better, though I am pretty sure I’ve already got a few fossilized bits of Bad Spanish that it’d take a lot of work to get rid of.
It’s endlessly fascinating how language seems to work after that first cutoff point of small-childhood development. I have studied Spanish for years and can read it easily. But to understand spoken Spanish, and produce it, takes a definite shifting of brainmeats, and that’s not easy.
Fortunately, this job means I’m getting lots of practice! Language theory is great, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling that you’ve just managed to communicate in a second language.
