… before climbing aboard my L.A.-to-Madrid one way flight in 2016. Fourteen out of many, many more. I launched my personal vocabulary list in my Tracy hotel room on the day I learned that I’d qualified for a Spain visa. The list is now seventy-two pages long, regularly updated, includes about 3,500 entries. Of those…
All posts tagged “language acquisition”
Europe’s Many Lingoes
“My God, these people are speaking Gallego!” These were the thoughts that ran through this not-entirely-acculturated Yankee’s noggin while waiting my turn at the Día Basquiños supermarket in Santiago de Compostela. I hadn’t eaten since morning, had wandered far from the tourist quarter in search of a vendor that would sell staples to lug back…
Polyglot Tips N’ Tricks
¡Buenos días! Adiós. Señora. I recognized those Spanish words at age thirty-five, not many more. I could point to a familiar menu item in a Mexican restaurant — for a quesadilla, chile relleno — regard a server with hopefully arched eyebrows. Today I live in Spain, relied on my Spanish to rent an apartment, arrange…