Spanish Frustrations

NEVER in my life have I struggled in Spanish. I cannot remember the last time I felt unable to express myself. Even if my vocabulary faltered, I could dance around the word with speed and ease. Of course, occasionally a conjugation would slip here and there, but I was always confident and comfortable in my ability to express myself.

Until Now.

Twenty years later and it feels like I am trying to teach myself to write left-handed. I can do it, but it is immensely slow, the letters sloppy and childish, each sentence requires an exhausting amount of concentration, and what does come out is unrecognizable as my own. For the past week I have chosen to remain mute because Portuguese has raped and pillaged my Spanish and either taken it as its slave or left it to rot. Even the simplest sentences that I pre-think in my head (which, I usually even think in Portuguese, translate it into Spanish, double check it one last time to let my lips get a little practice forming the word) still come out Portanol. Its embarrassing.

This week I signed up for an intensive Spanish class at the Costa Rican Language Academy across town to force myself to regain my Spanish. After a written and oral exam I was (thankfully) placed into Advanced Spanish. (There is still hope that my Spanish will be reborn from the ashes). In my class of four students, I understand absolutely everything (my comprehension is as great or even better than ever), grammatically I am sharp (preterito/imperfecto, ser/estar, subjuntivo...Bring it ON), but my speaking is AWFUL. I am at a loss for words, and the words I do use are Portuguese (muito instead of muy/mucho being the number one offender, closely followed by e instead of es, and ele instead of el...the list is endless). But worst of all, is that it doesn't even sound right. My tongue can no longer gracefully spin the pirouettes of Spanish, the pronunciation sounds outlandish and awkward and I am pretty sure I have picked up a Portuguese-Spanish accent. GREAT.

One of the women in my class is a Brazilian born, now long-time US resident high school Spanish teacher. Yesterday at one of our breaks she asked me (in Spanish) about my trip to Brazil, and just for my own sake, I answered in Portuguese. Boy did it feel good. I could talk a mile a minute and not once did I have to think about what I was saying. It just flew out. In mindless bliss, I could have talked for hours. Except she had a few follow up questions which she posed in Spanish. So I went back to the stumbling cadence of espanol. Wings were clipped and I was back to climbing a rocky mountain with a broken leg.

Okay, perhaps I am being a little dramatic. My Spanish will come back, its just going to take more effort than I hoped and a LOT more practice. Its just frustrating that's all. And I just hope its not at the cost of my Portuguese...