habla espanol?

So most of the time I feel Sam and are both pretty realistic people but then this week I realized this might not always be true. Turns out we have been a bit overly optimistic.

We are heading to Playa del Carmen this Saturday for over a week of sun, beaches, diving for Sam (more pool time for me), excellent Mexican food, and did I mention sun? We have both talked about for some time now - years to be more truthful - about our desire to learn another language.

I took Spanish in high school and college but when my professor starting only speaking Spanish in class I would show up and not even realize it was test day. Seems maybe I wasn't quite keeping up. It was the end of my formal Spanish training and I left being able to say my name, tell everyone I was fine thank you, and count.

Each time I have visited Mexico I am under the delusion I can speak a bit of Spanish and I try and use my very rusty skills on the Mexican population. I have phrases I can say but if someone actually answers my question I suddenly revert to asking them to continually repeat themselves. Finally they start just pointing and using sign language and I suddenly figure it out. See - I think to myself - I really do know some Spanish and given a bit more practice I could be fluent.

So for this trip Sam and I were going to get serious about this speaking Spanish. In theory this sounds like a great idea but the problem is we got serious on Sunday - as in Sunday the 10th 1 week before we leave.

Sam was frantically studying Spanish via the Rosetta Stone while I was using My Spanish Coach on my Nintendo DS. Now I will say I have been trying to buy the Spanish software since I got my DS just after Christmas but not sure that really would have mattered. Even if it hadn't been sold out I don't think those extra 2 weeks would have been long enough for me have conversations in Spanish, at least those that went beyond hello, my name is, and I am doing very well thank you.

So I did the pretest and I ended up on level 9 which was all about summer, raining (not a word I want to know in Spanish I expect sun not rain in Mexico), snow - even worse, and now I am on to family members. While this might be helpful if I was at a family reunion it doesn't seem especially relevant to our trip.

What I really want to know is how to bargain, read a Spanish menu, ask for directions, where the best restaurants are, and how to get to the best snorkeling. Somehow I don't think I will get to this lesson before we leave. Luckily I will have a 5 1/2 plane ride to cram even more.

As we are frantically cramming for our trip I started to have a good laugh at our expense. While it is good we have started our lessons we might be just a tad late to the game here. But then I remembered my resolution was to learn to speak Spanish but do it in a Spanish speaking country. I am pretty sure I can get someone to speak to me while I am sitting at the pool or at a restaurant. If I engage others in conversation I will just have to tell them upfront I want to learn instead of trying out my pre-canned phrases and then wishing they wouldn't speak so quickly.

Why don't I just keep learning about family members and hope I finally pass this level at least I will maybe be able to ask about their abuelas, abuelos, hijas, hijos, hermanas, and hermanos. Now if only I could understand what else they are telling me. Maybe if I keep working at it next year I will be a bit more ahead of the game. See already a reason to return before I have even left on this trip.