Espanol

Last night, Sarah's pensionista in Peru emailed me to tell me that the missionaries' p-day had been changed and she would not be emailing me until Wednesday, so not to worry when I didn't get the customary email on Monday. The email was in English, so I assume Sarah told her what to write. She also sent me some photos of Sarah. I wanted to write a little note back to her in Spanish, thanking her for the pictures. I thought I knew what to say, but I wasn't sure, so I had to call Preston and Emily and ask them. Even they had a brief discussion on the right word for "cute" and whether it should be "son" or "estan".

All that got me thinking about my Spanish skills. Were all those years of high school and college Spanish wasted? What about the 12 years I helped my kids with high school Spanish? I've never traveled to a Spanish speaking country. I don't know if I ever will. All of our kids took a lot of Spanish in high school and college. 4 out of 5 of our kids who have gone on missions have served Spanish speaking missions and Preston served in Madrid, Spain. Rene has traveled a lot in South America; in fact, he just got back a few days ago from Ecuador. He has a "Learn to speak Spanish" file on his MP3 player that he listens to to try to learn something. It just seems like my chance to really learn to communicate in Spanish has never come.

I have realized, though, that there is quite a bit of Spanish I remember. I remember this tongue twister from high school Spanish:

Erre con erre cigarro; Erre con erre barril. Rapido corren los carros, Cargados de azucar al ferrocarril.

I can at least roll my r's, which some people cannot do.

I remember a joke that at least one of our kids found funny:

Que hace un pez? Nada!

There was also a joke that I think Joseph used to tell about "el Papa".

My reading comprehension in Spanish is way higher than my ability to speak. I recently heard Elder Scott say that if you have learned a foreign language, you ought to read the Book of Mormon in that language occasionally, just for the added interesting nuances.

When I am at the store and hear Spanish being spoken, I am able to understand bits of it. We don't have a huge Spanish speaking population here, but there are some.

Well, whether or not I ever actually find my Spanish useful, I think that learning a language is always a good thing. For starters, it helps you understand your own language better. And it's like music, training for the brain. I guess I'll just enjoy the opportunities I do have to learn and use a little Spanish here and there.