Yo no ti entendo a tu: The Language Barrier

The other night I was trying to tell José something funny that happened over the phone. You know when you first wake up in the morning and someone is trying to get some really complicated information out of you before you've had a cup of coffee? Yeah, it was like that.

My Spanish has Bombed over the summer. Capital B.

All of July at an English camp surrounded by fellow compatriots and all of August and half of September at home. The only sprinkling of Spanish has been a week I came back to Malaga before heading home and talking with José via internet. I had grand plans of studying and practicing and all of that, but ya know.....Eh. Willpower has never been my forte.

Does this look like a group that practices their Spanish conversation? No sir.
This is a group that practices their right to bitch over cold beers in 'merican.

Now that I'm back I've got to get back on the bandwagon and practice. I want to take the C2 exam in May so I need to get my formal Spanish in particular up to speed. Which means I am resurrecting my little notebooks.

That's right, coven of witches was somewhere in a
newspaper. Maybe they were talking about The View.

My first year I would obsessively read newspapers and underline the words I didn't know. Then I'd look them up and write them in these little red notebooks. Through this method you learn great words like superávit (surplus), cebada (barley), or séquito (retinue, a King's entourage), which are obviously crucial. I also translated newspapers and old copies of Newsweek my mom sent me. I was on a mission.

I <3 vocab.

Another, much better, reason to take up studying more aggressively is to further erase the language barrier between José and I.

Mi José, back when he was an extra in Casablanca.

The person I am in one language, more talkative or secure in English or more reserved and sometimes downright shy in Spanish, changes. Even the hand gestures and facial expressions, the tics and tones, shift. Case in point: look at Mediterranean gestures when talking about an annoying neighbor/cousin/coworker versus an American.

It makes you wonder what your relationship would be like if we didn't come from where we do or speak what we speak. We speak mostly in Spanish, but I love to hear him in English. The words and the order offer more of an insight into what he's thinking. You often can learn lots about another language by listening to a native speaker talk in English. Plus I love talking to him period, I love his voice in any language.

Mostly, I just want to talk with José and be completely sure that it's me coming through. If that isn't motivation to learn then I don't know what is.