So it's a new year and the sun is beating down whilst I look at images of beautiful snow across my friends' facebook pages. I remember how much I used to snuggle under the feathery barrier of my duvet during winter, hoping the eerie white glow from outside would be from an overnight fall of snow, closing down the public transport so I wouldn't have to go to work. The worst scenario was a light sprinkling in the morning, not enough to stop the trains entirely, but lengthy delays standing outside and then battling to get on the one train that made it through with hundreds of other people, only to get to work, wet and cold, and then for the snow to really fall hard. I'd spend the day anxiously reading travel reports showing all my lines home being closed, praying that the powers that be would send us home early, only to find that would give me a red mark for being late because of the delays in the morning and then for that to be reflected a few months later in my pay review.
I did deliberately chose to live on an island that has no trains or tubes and never has any snow so those obstacles are removed. But wherever you move there are obstacles and it would be ingenuous not to expect that. That said, I don't think I anticipated just how hard the language barrier might be for me.
I've spent the last 7 weeks studying Spanish every week day for 2 hours, accumulating phrases and responses and words. And I am still far from able to conduct a conversation in Spanish. I've only met two or three people who speak English and the onus is really on me to learn, otherwise only Dominick receives my conversational "gems". I practise my new phrases on Dominick, but apparently my accent really sucks and I need to get pronuniciation down as much as vocab.
I do love the language - I enjoy learning it and there is a huge thrill when I do make myself undertstood through language more than hand gestures. Yet when it comes to being thrown into a situation where I must think and speak quickly and understand I may as well be deaf and mute. I'm confident enough in the supermarket now - to ask for veg to be weighed and ask for carrier bags or how much something costs. But anything else totally throws me, like the postman coming today with a package I ordered over three weeks ago with guaranteed 48 hour delivery. Ordering things and receiving them are no simple task and usually an extra fee is required to receive items of mail as most things are taxed when they come in, hence the delay in receiving anything. Any unusual items (not in an envelope) get sent to customs first and then they assess how much tax they can add to the product or just hold it and leave a slip in the letter box asking you to send receipts for the item which takes a couple of weeks and then it arrives and then you have to cough up the euros. However, when I don't really understand what the postman is saying, well then I tend to panic and have no idea how to respond or ask questions.
I can only speak a little Spanish and usually that is when I have sat for a good five minutes practising what it is I want to say in my head or under my breath before I have a go, but in normal life you don't get five minutes to rehearse responses to unexpected situations.
It gives me a new sense of empathy for immigrants to the UK who have very little English at their disposal and how hard they must find it. And also an understanding of why people who do move countries often gravitate towards their own language/ethnic/groups because it is easier.
The best gift I think you can give kids, apart from being loving parents obviously, is give them a shot at another language when they are super young. Have someone in your life regularly as a family that can engage them while their brains are fresh and acquisitive in a second language that they will never forget the building blocks for.
So it would be easier to just seek out the ex pats here but I will perservere because language barriers are made to be broken, no matter how often I embarass myself or get flustered.
