Hablas Espanol Con Fluidez? (are you fluent in spanish?)

My Spanish class crew at our favorite meet up bar

Inevitably someone has to ruin all the fun chit chat of moving to Spain and ask 'Hablas espanol con fluidez ahora (do you speak Spanish fluently now)?' To which I always respond "Si, hablo espanol perfectamente (yes, I speak spanish perfectly)!" and then Google Translate and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

No, I don't speak Spanish fluently. 

I feel your judgement, I know you are thinking I should be immersing myself in the language, quietly asking why bother moving to another country if you aren't going to learn the language? What a gross waste of an opportunity! 

Well, as Carrie Fisher's character in the movie When Harry Met Sally said "You're right, you're right, I know you're right. "

Can I just say, for the record, no one told me that Spain Spanish was really different than the South American Spanish I grew up learning. Phrases and words need to be unlearned, I am repeatedly being barked at "NO!" in class which makes it incredibly difficult to attempt speaking out in the "wild" when my teacher constantly telling me I'm doing it wrong. Also, why bother when everyone speaks Catalan anyway?

OK so that is the cranky me talking. It is frustrating and exhausting, but I am trying. In July 2025 we landed in Spain, by September we had moved to Sitges, and in October we started Spanish classes twice a week. Denali doubled down by also taking two semesters of Spanish online through her University Film Certificate program and I attempted visa and healthcare paperwork in Spanish. This was an unorthodox method, but I do now know things like 'necesito una cita' or 'tengo una tarjeta sanitaria' and one all of you regular readers will appreciate, the word 'empadronamiento' also known as going to the PADRON. That word scares me so much that I can assure you we are still getting very important government mail at our old address because I have not worked up the courage to go back in, face La Senora, and change it. So what is the hold up with my language skills as we come up on a year of classes?

I think there are several things at play here... the first thing is that just being in a different country is emotionally exhausting. Everything is new and different and it takes a toll. Something as simple as coffee necessitates a deep dive. Turns out they roast coffee beans with sugar in Spain which actually makes the coffee taste more bitter. If you don't like your coffee to taste like vomiting bile, then you must get beans marked natural. The second thing is that we moved to Catalonia (an autonomous region in Spain) that speaks Catalan so just learning to hear the differences in the 2 languages was a workout. For months I thought I was seriously learning impaired because I couldn't understand anything an-y-thing locals were saying and I assumed they were speaking Spanish. Catalan is tricky and it is everywhere here, the grocery store I like the most has all of its signs in Catalan. The store's own brand of foods, in Catalan. The checker? You guessed it, speaking Catalan. Fun trivia 'tens carnet de soci' means 'do you have a member card' in Catalan. My personal favorite is websites, like your healthcare patient portal, kindly offers to translate the Catalan into Spanish for ease, no English option. Awesome, that will help lots! The third issue is that we are in a touristy seaside town so people working in restaurants speak some English and want to switch to that the second they catch wind of my jackassery. I have to work really hard to fight the instinct to sound intelligent and instead clunk my way through a sentence in Spanish.  

In truth I do see baby steps in the right direction. I was able to help a little old woman find something in a store the other day and that required a full conversation, and when I was watching a video without subtitles last night I managed to get most of the information I needed. Jesse says he can see improvement simply because of the kind of questions I ask him when I need his help with my Spanish homework, so maybe I am getting something here and there. I have had a couple people praise my accent which is cool since it has required a shift from the South American click I've known my entire life. It isn't easy, I didn't think it would be, but I am trying, even if it is only a little bit every day. 

But hey, at least I can order a glass of wine and that is all that is really important, isn't it?