Sprechen Sie Espanol? Charades?

My second language is Spanish.  Not that I am able to speak it, or read it, or even understand it enough to be on the receiving end of a conversation, but I know quite a few vocabulary words and it is my fall back language when the person in front of me doesn't speak English.  This is not typically a problem while trying to teach or communicate with my students parents...but it does present a problem when I am trying to talk to our new friend who is visiting from Germany. 

Sylvia's mom has a longtime friend visiting from her home city in Augsburg, Germany.  My family and I have become weekend tour guides and it has been fun watching someone touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time, hike out to a lighthouse, (it was 100 feet off the road but if I say 'hike' maybe my body will think that I exercised) walk on a pier, eat at a restaurant that is over the water, and refuse to try chocolate covered bacon.  (I had her piece)  She is very gracious and willing to go wherever we suggest she should go and see whatever we suggest she should see.  She knows about as much English as I know Spanish but with Sylvia being fluent (she majored in German in college...not to mention there were years when she came back from vacation as a child and 'forgot' how to speak English) and her mom (the Augsburg-er) I am not feeling left out of the conversations. 

The problems arise when I try to dust off my one and a half units of Rosetta Stone German to try to say something to Irmgard.  She is very accommodating and figures out more of what I am trying to say than I actually say correctly but every once in a while I insert a Spanish word and that just gums up the whole works. 

The biggest problem is "Si!"  In class, the Spanish speaking kids will ask meyes and no questions.  I will automatically answer in Spanish...and then English.  I have learned phrases that will help me in my teaching in Spanish and again, I will use them in tandem with English so the kids can learn...by immersion.  Pero me estoy apartando del tema...(but I digress...)

I am finding it funny that I resort to Spanish on autopilot rather than slow down and run through all the things I have learned about German.  The very first things I learned in German were somewhat random and disconnected.  When I was wooing Sylvia before we were married (I still try to do it now but I am not the wooer I once was...I'm working on it) I wrote her a note in German.  Entschuldigen Sie Bitte, Wo bist die naschte chocolade?  I'm sure I misspelled most of that but essentially it says, very politely, excuse me please, where is the nearest chocolate?  Then we got married and on the plane trip to meet her relatives in Germany she taught me, Hast du unterhosen on? (Are you wearing underwear?...Did I marry the right woman or WHAT!)  Of course I took my new found knowledge out for a test drive when I met her 92 year old aunt!  This family is a kick!  Then my sister got a pen-pal in Germany and, to mess with him, asked Sylvia for this phrase.  Wenn bist du nakt? (when are you naked?)  Are you seeing that the pomegranate doesn't fall too far from the tree!? (no ordinary apples in this crowd...my kids are doomed...or destined to make millions laugh on their own variety show...in space!)

Aside from asking Irmgard embarrassing questions I am finding that I am, in fact, tri-lingual!  I speak Italian!  Well, not so much the words that Italian people use.  I speak with my hands.  The joke in our half-Italian family has always been, "How do you give an Italian a speech impediment?  Break his arm!"  We are very hand motion intensive people around here.  I think it is difficult to add nuance to a story without the added benefit of hand motions...you'll just have to take my word for it.  If my writing makes you smile, if you saw me acting it out in person you would be rolling on the ground...because I am not especially careful with my hands and I usually end up poking people in the eye.  My gyrations work, in large part, because the people I talk to understand the words I saying so the hand motions make sense.  Poor Irmgard looks at me, while I try to explain myself...with the magic of interpretive dance...and wonders, in German, how long has he been off of his medications?  And why does he want a gorilla to mail a letter to the refrigerator?

OK, so I am off.  I have a bit of work to do to get ready to take the crew to San Francisco.  Sylvia and I love the city.  It is where I proposed to her...but that is another story.

P.S.  I have just decided to write a book...this morning!  (Decided this morning...not write it this morning)  It isn't anything to do with the blog but I thought I should mention it here first since the blog...and the eight people who have commented here...have a large part to do with my thinking I could write something that people would want to read.  I'll let you know more later but I am excited and I think it could be big...like interviews on TV and people actually paying to see it big.  Wish Me Luck!