Me llamo Megan: How I used to be fluent

(Me in middle school with an award from my Spanish class)

I started learning Spanish as a kid. My dad served his mission in Peru and decided to pass along some vocabulary to his daughters. Every night we'd brush our 'dientes'. When we didn't brush our hair or dress like normal children (which was most of the time), we were 'huérfanos'. And you never said 'fart' at our house. You said 'pedo'.

My official Spanish education began in middle school. Seventh grade, I think. It continued every year, through four years of high school and into college. By my second year at BYU, I was in the same Spanish class as the returned missionaries.

And that was the last Spanish class I ever took. I bested them at writing and grammar, but when it came to vocabulary and actually speaking the language, I was blown away. Eight years of learning in a classroom has nothing on spending two years immersed in a language and culture.

So I quit. But I tried to keep up my skills somehow. Basically, all I did was read my 'Libro de Mormon' to try to stay in the groove. Upon further reflection, I realized this was fairly stupid. Can you imagine trying to learn English by reading the Book of Mormon?

"And it came to pass that I, Megan, did sit myself down to write the things which were in my heart. But behold, it came to pass that my son, being exceedingly small in stature, did go forth unto his bedroom and did find himself quite stuck in his crib. Therefore, I must make an end of my proceedings."

So I changed my tactic. I still read my 'Libro de Mormon', but I'm also checking out books in Spanish from the library. Unfortunately, I don't dare read anything in the 'adult' section because you never know what filthy surprises you'll find in those suckers. So I'm stuck with the 'young adult' section, which has all of twenty books (and I've read half of them in English already). Not much to work with, but I'll take what I can get.

And you know what? It's working. I think. I made it through my first book with a pretty good idea of what was going on. I keep my Spanish-English dictionary close by, because the vocabulary is usually new to me. Now I'm on book #2. We'll see how it goes.

Why does this matter so much? Because I hate to let all my work just degenerate into nothing, partially. But mostly because Jon's little brother is getting married. To Claudia, who he met in Spain, but who is originally from Peru. And her English is about as good as my Spanish. I've been trying to help as much as I can with wedding plans, but my Spanish is...lacking. Do you know how to say "I want to wear my hair down" in Spanish? Me neither.

So what do you do? How do you keep up the skills you learned in school but don't have a chance to use consistently anymore? Do you just let it go--if it were important, you'd be using it anyway--or are you making your own pitiful attempts, like me?

Sometimes I miss being in school...