Bonjour! Je m'appelle Alisha. Ca va? Ou est le toilet? Adios! Taco burrito enchilada! Sierra la boca! Croissant!
Impressive, non? Oui, I am bilingual. Didn't know that did you? Yep! I am reasonably fluent in three languages - English, French and Spanish. Okay, almost fluent. Fluent-ish. I took French in school, grew up in Texas where Spanish is a second language and even though I went to Houston public schools, I came out with a pretty firm grasp on the English language, more or less.
Four years of French in high school and college ("Non, non, non! En Francais!") enabled me to stumble my way through a vacation in stunning, gorgeous France. Thank God most of the French people spoke English, but still... I did it and I was SO proud of myself. I made darn sure I knew how to say the two most important things of all, "How much is it?" And, "Where is the bathroom?" I was all set.
An old man sat down next to me on a park bench one day and started chattering away in French. I was able to say, "Je ne parle pas Francais. Je suis American." ("I don't speak French. I'm American.") He took one look at my pretty young self, decided he didn't care and kept chattering away. I nodded and laughed like I understood. We got along tres bien.
Also while in France, in trying to impress my new-ish husband with my amazing linguistic abilities, I decided to tell our attractive young waitress how pretty she was. I knew the words for this simple compliment but for some reason I ended up telling her, "I take you are stupid pretty." I knew immediately I'd screwed up by the confused (and annoyed) look on her face so I decided to just ferme ma bouche, stop trying to be all continental and conversational and just eat my bete croissant.
Another day there was a loud ruckus outside our hotel room that involved a dog and a cat. So, in trying to be helpful and obviously unaware of my overconfidence in my language ability, I ran out there and yelled, "Qu'est que c'est pas chat? Pardon! Oui! Chien! Mais non! Pourquoi?!" (What is it not cat? Excuse me! Yes! Dog! But no! Why?") It was all I could think of in that moment of stress. Surprisingly, I was no help at all. Merde.
Maybe fluent isn't the word. Maybe semi-fluent? I can still pick up a word or two here and there in a song or in a movie though, which always surprises me. I hadn't realized how much French vocab I'd retained. 40 years later, I can still count to 20 en Francais. Whyyyy? Hey brain! Are we hanging onto that information for a reason? Can't we free up some space up there? I don't think we're ever going back to France and won't need it and ... aww! Don't cry! Okay! Hang on to ALL the French! I'm sure we'll make it back there at some point before we die. Je suis desolee!! Sheesh. Sacre Bleu. 🙄
And you'd think I'd know a LOT more Spanish having grown up in Houston, Texas AND having spent many a summer vacation on warm, lovely Mexican beaches. But alas, I'm not very eloquent there either. I always made sure I had my handy dandy, most important life-saving phrases with me though, "How much?" And, "Where's the bathroom?" But other than that, "Adios" and yummy food items, I was lost.
A linguist I'm not.
I guess the Blarney Stone course that I ordered didn't do a very good job. Oh well, I've got the accents down and I know some bad words, so it's not a total loss.
I, in my sage wisdom, did know to pass down this rich linguistic heritage to my two boys so I made them watch Speedy Gonzales, handed them a book of Spanish vocabulary and lovingly said, "Here. Learn this. You'll need it for your first job, which you're about to have to get. Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!" I so deserved the Mother of the Year Award that year, I swear.
But. I did make sure they were fluent in one way in particular... I taught them to say, "I love you" in all three languages, and in every way possible. And really, that's all that matters anyway, right? 🥰
C'est la vie! Bon chance! Je t'aime! Au revoir mes amies! Ooh la la! 👩🎨🗼
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