Learning Spanish is turning me into a Neanderthal at suppertime.
You see, we’re trying to speak Spanish to our children both as practice for ourselves and exposure for them. But mealtime with children is difficult, even in the best of times. It’s many times harder when you’re restricted by your vocabulary.
So I find when I really want to say, “Do not pour your spaghetti onto your brother’s head,” what I end up saying is something like, “Arrgghh!” while waving my hands and flapping my arms.
It is humorous how mixed up our brains are getting at times, especially when stressful moments happen, as they are wont to do. It feels like the brain engages in such a basic way as to be ineffective.
In a situation like a supper crisis, you are likely to hear any of several languages at our house these days: Platt Deutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and–if we’re lucky–English! And it’s often a couple languages squished together.
It’s as if the brain notices a problem and calls out, “Engage the words!” And some flunky down below who had fallen asleep on the job wakes up and scrambles frantically around the room, grabbing words at random.
Don’t be too hard on him for falling asleep, though. I suspect they’ve had him working overtime to label and store all the new words coming in. He’s got to be exhausted.
I feel sorry for him. So I’ll just point and grunt, cave-man-style, until he catches up. He deserves a break.
Juan David 