Ten, Please!

Yesterday was a huge milestone for me. I’ve been working towards this moment for months, maybe even my whole life, and I just wanted to say thank you to my friends and family for supporting me. I couldn’t have done it without you…

Today, when I said “Diez, gracias,” the other person in the elevator pressed the button for the tenth floor without asking me “What?”

For some reason, I could never pronounce “diez” quite right in the elevator. On various occasions, I tried pronouncing it like dies and like diezzz. Neither worked. One day I had an epiphany – if I drop the consonant at the end and say die’ they’ll understand! Nope, I got a “huh?” in response to that one (apparently Chileans drop s’s but not z’s). I’ve tried “diez,” “diez por favor,” and “diez gracias.” I’ve pronounced it like a question and like a statement. I’ve said it loudly and softly. I even sat down with my host sister and begged her to teach me to say it exactly like she did. Our conversation went something like this:

“Diez.”

“Diez.”

“Diez.”

“Diez.”

“Diez.”

“Diez.”

Maybe it was something about being in a metal cage, the Faraday shielding efect, interference with the electrical signals of my neurons…But no, I think what happened yesterday was I gave up trying to say it right and just said it.

My Spanish is not all that bad, at least outside of the elevator. I’ve conversed with a woman with a neurodegenerative disease and missing teeth, I’ve understood the presidential debates on television, and I’ve talked with friends and family for hours about life and politics everything I would talk to friends and family about in the US. Once while I was reading an article, my friend asked which language it was in, and I had to actually look back at the page to see. I wasn’t consciously reading in Spanish or reading in English; I was just reading. And once, I dreamt in Spanish.

My Spanish hasn’t interfered with my English much, except that I tend to spell “-tion” words with a “-cion,” and certain words jump to my mind in Spanish before they do in my mother tongue (aprovechar – to take advantage of, faltar – to lack, palta – avocado). My Spanish has, however, interfered with my Hebrew something awful. It isn’t so much a cognitive or intellectual confusion, so much as an almost-physical phenomena. It’s like a sledding slope, where you just keep going down the same path again and again. I intend to say something in Hebrew to my mother and it literally just comes out in Spanish.

I can no longer imagine studying abroad in an English-speaking country, nor can I imagine studying abroad in a place where I hardly speak the language at all. This isn’t to say those experiences aren’t worthwhile, but I’m so glad I’m here.