The past week has been very hectic for my family. Illnesses seem to have found everyone at the same time, including a heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery for my Uncle. Thankfully the surgery went smoothly and everyone is recovering well (including myself after a rough bout of food poisoning). As such the last week has left me a surplus of time to simply sit and listen to my family and fully appreciate how adept they are with different languages.
Much of my family is triligual and has little trouble interpreting for the rest of us on the spot when necessary. This really puts into perspective how pathetic we are in America with anything other than English. Learning Spanish is such a chore to most of us and we spend one decade of forced learning only to reach the aptitude of a gradeschool child.
Necesito usar el bano. Yo tengo hambre. Vamos a la piscina. I could survive south of the U.S. border but literally surviving would max out my current skillset. A native speaker would find me painful to listen to for at least 6 months. My cousin Pilo on the other hand could go to a double feature today of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows followed by Dabaang (Hindi), then give a flawless verbal summary of both in fluent Telugu. In fact my ammumma--who had to forgo finishing high school with 4 children to raise before her 21st birthday--could do the same and then match my spanish proficiency with her Portuguese!
We've got 10 years of formal Spanish education to work with and I will assume more resources than my ammumma had in a 1950's India. I think it's past time for us to step up to the plate in America, tempting as it may be to skate by with only English under our belts.
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