Cats Who Speak English

A FAREWELL TO THE SPANISH LANGUAGE

      I never have to speak a word of Spanish again, which is probably a good thing since I haven’t retained all that much of it. As of the end of this semester, I have officially achieved exit level status in my studies of the Spanish language. But if I had my way, I would have been done with it 12 years ago.

     One day in the second grade, without warning, a small Hispanic woman who was most likely an illegal immigrant came into our classroom and started speaking to us in broken English. She was there to teach us the Spanish language. I was familiar with Spanish from my younger years, when Big Bird tried to shove it down my throat every few months on Sesame Street. Other than that I had very little interest in learning a new language. I was seven, I had just mastered reading and writing in English and already I was being forced to start from scratch with a weird alphabet where some of the letters had marks or squiggly lines above them. This was not all right.

     This small Hispanic woman stood in the middle of my second grade classroom, unwanted and confused. I wanted my regular teacher back, who spoke normal English and was enjoying the fleeting minutes of peace before returning to a room filled with over-stimulated seven year-olds. I could tell our Spanish teacher was nervous and unprepared, which meant she wasn’t a licensed educator and probably had no idea where she was or why these children were so bored. One day, we had to cut out little pictures of members of la familia from our workbooks and paste them inside the casa. I folded back the head of la madre and glued her upside down in el baño so it looked as though her head was submerged in el toilet. My teacher, who made such a small impression on me that I completely forgot her name and most of her facial features other than the possibility that she may have had glasses, saw what I had done and didn’t say anything. If this isn’t concrete proof that she didn’t really speak English, then I’m not a virgin.

       Over the years, not much improved. It seemed as though we went over the same thing year after year with the occasional Dora the Explorer episode or Buscando a Nemo thrown in to keep me from falling asleep. I failed every time when I tried to roll my r’s and there was no way I’d ever make heads or tails of the pluscuamperfecto verb tense. For four years of high school, I went through the motions until Cinco de Mayo when we’d have a piñata and eat Tostitos. And yes, in case you were wondering, in my 12-year stint with Spanish I saw a dubbed version of Sister Act. Twice.

     It also didn’t help that most Spanish textbooks use the same exact vocabulary themes. Last year, as a freshman in college, I was still “learning” vocabulary based on el tren, el restaurante, el hospital, y la playa. I know how to tell a Spaniard what I will pack in a suitcase for a tropical vacation but I see no real world application for this because what I pack in my suitcase is my personal business. And while I might need to know how to order in Spanish at a restaurant, I doubt I’ll ever find myself in a Mexican hospital unless I’m having a terrible nightmare. Maybe it’s not that I haven’t learned anything in Spanish, but the things I have learned aren’t useful. I know a bunch of barnyard animals and the sounds they make, and it seems pointless how universal sounds have different words in different languages. Cats who speak English say, “meow” so why not just keep it that way?  I know how to narrate the action of brushing my teeth, but not how to barter with a street vendor over a bag of sliced mangos. If these textbooks wanted me to actually speak Spanish they would’ve included directions for my cleaning lady not to move my things, phrases to let muggers know I will cooperate, and how to find out how much margaritas cost during happy hour.  None of my dozens of textbooks have included any of this. If I knew real Spanish, my life would be so much better. But instead I’m just a sober potential mugging victim who got ripped off on a bag of mango slices and whose cleaning lady moves all his stuff. Life es malo. (I don’t know how to say “hard” so instead I said “bad.” Close enough). 

       When I was in Paris, I found myself thinking and speaking in Spanish whenever someone was speaking at me in French. After so many years in Spanish class, I've become conditioned to speak Spanish whenever someone isn’t speaking English. The French people did not appreciate my limited Spanish skills. Somewhere in my brain the mechanics of Spanish are lying doormat, ready to be used. But even if I could tap into that part of my brain, all that’s there is how to check into a hotel and communicate with barnyard animals in their native tongue. Maybe it’s best to leave that part of my brain alone, along with the part that knows too much about iCarly. For now, I have no problem ignoring everything about Spanish and living my life as a full-blown English speaker. I’ve even gone as far as majoring in English. I want to make sure the world knows I speak one language and I’m damn good at it. So farewell, Spanish! For your sake and mine I hope you never leave my lips again. In my world, cats say “meow” and that’s it...unless they purr which is a whole other thing.