The Gum
Jess told me an antecdote yesterday which I think is a perfect example of the types of frustrations you can have living abroad.
Last week Jess and Henry went to the grocery store to buy some groceries and she saw a pack of gum that she wanted to buy. The gum (apparently) was a new flavor that reminded her of the Wintergreen flavor that you can get in the US but you cannot buy here in Spain.
During checkout, the package of gum wouldn't ring up so the checkout lady was unable to sell it to Jess. In Spanish (obviously), the lady asked Jess if she really wanted to buy it. Jess responded with an emphatic YES. Each checkout counter has one of those pathetic help me lights that the checker can turn on if there is a problem. She turned it on. No one came. Jess is getting more annoyed, but she can't really say anything because she doesn't know how.
The lady looks at Jess. Jess looks at the lady. The lady asks Jess a bunch of stuff. Jess tells the lady she doesn't speak Spanish. The lady misunderstands Jess's Spanish (I suppose hearing the word 'no'), thinks she doesn't want the gum and puts it into her drawer and moves on.
Jess realizes she's been misunderstood, points at the gum, does one of those "I don't speak the language but I'm going to point and grunt until you realize what I want" motions and says (in English) that she really freaking wants the gum.
Checkout lady is frustrated. Jess is frustrated. Line of people behind Jess and Henry are frustrated.
Jess finally gives up, pays, and leaves hating Spain just a little bit more than when she left the house.
On the walk home, Henry doesn't understand what just happened. Who cares about the gum?
It's not about the gum.
It's about being able to communicate your wants and needs in a situation. Like an adult.
The only analog I can come up with is like trying to talk to someone on the telephone with a really bad connection. If you lose 1 out of every 4 words, the conversation starts to get annoying but you can carry on. If you lose 1 out of every 2 words, the conversation starts to break down but you can sorta kinda make it work if you really have to. If you can only hear 1 out of every 10 or 20 words, then you might as well hang up the phone because the conversation simply doesn't work. That's what it's like.
Not being able to communicate brings with it a lot of frustration that manifests itself in all sorts of fun passive-aggressive ways. And by fun I don't mean fun.
Spanish isn't that hard.
True, it's not.
The US Government lists Spanish as a Category I language for native English speakers. That means if I work at it like a second job and practice approximately 20 hours per week, then I should reach fluency in around 1 year. If I study less then the time scales out proportionally to multiples of years.
Am I here to learn Spanish? No I am not. Would I like to be able to focus on it? Of course I would. The honest truth is that we're not going to live here forever. The long term motivation simply isn't there for us to down prioritize other activities (that everyone has with a busy life, busy job, and busy kids) in order to prioritize studying Spanish.
Do I wish I could change that? Yes I do. Because until it does I'm basically walking around with a broken telephone, unable to talk. It's not the other people's fault. It's my fault. But at this point it looks like I'm not going to get a new phone.
