Guest Post by John at mexicowoods.com

By the time I was three years old, I could speak English better than I now speak Spanish—after six years of study and five of living in Mexico full-time. Children are geniuses at acquiring language. Their brains are physiologically different—better wired for picking up vocabulary, for constructing a grammar engine. But not mine, anymore.

I’m 66. How I wish I could still learn language quickly. But feeding a genius-quality language-learning brain sucks up resources needed elsewhere later in life. We’re programmed to learn language early, after which energy gets diverted into other vital activities. Like procreation.

What do you want? French? Or sex? I rest my case.

I began preparing for living in Mexico by engaging the services of Vivian. Years ago she had been a Spanish major at the University of Alabama. She guided me through vocabulary lists and present-tense conjugations. She also gave me an accent—academy Spanish filtered through the deep south.

Six months of lessons three times a week prepared me so that on my first visit to Mexico, I could greet and thank people, inquire about bathrooms, and ask for the check. La cuenta, por favor. A most useful expression.

Clearly I needed more effective training. In San Miguel de Allende, I was staying for two weeks in a hotel that offered intensive Spanish lessons as part of the package. This was how I met the excellent Adela Sanchez, an aristocratic Mexican matron who gave me four hours of daily instruction followed by homework assignments that took another four. I learned more vocabulary, both simple past tenses, and the ir a construction for indicating the future. She also taught me the eighteen rules for determining when to use por instead of para. Of course, none of them remain in my head today. I just use whatever sounds right. Like one of those genius three-year-olds would. Estoy caminando por el parque para encontrar mi amigo.

(The por-para dichotomy is revenge for the English in-on-at set of prepositions, all of which are expressed in Spanish as en. Mexicans almost never get it right.)

Adela’s tutelage armed me for negotiating my way out of an extortion attempt by a corrupt traficante in the best-avoided town of Gomez Palacio. This alleged officer of the law was demanding I pay an on-the-spot fine of ochociento pesos (about $75) for committing the violation of Driving While Gringo. (My California plates were the tipoff.) The sentence, Ja vamos a ver tu jefe did the trick. (Let’s go see your boss.)

Moving to San Miguel the following year, I was impressed by Michele, my gringa landlady, whose Spanish was fluent. I asked her how she did it.

“Well, besides living in Mexico and speaking with Mexicans every day, I have taken a one hour lesson every week for the last twelve years.”

“Jeez, Michele. Isn’t that kind of slow?”

“What’s your rush? You’re going to be speaking Spanish for the rest of your life. So why not take the rest of your life to learn it? Besides, everyone knows that retention is better with continuous study than it is with intensive courses.

Her approach seemed so attractive. I had been uncomfortably contemplating a couple of months of immersion, with no faith that at the end, I would have achieved any kind of fluency.

Shortly thereafter, I found Erika, the daughter of a Mexican woman and a Spanish man. She became my Spanish teacher for the last four years, coming to my house to speak with me in Spanish for 90 minutes every week. Today I can make myself understood in nearly all business situations, and I’m semi-comfortable in social situations. My grammar remains fairly awful, but everyone seems to forgive me.

One problem with most language instruction is that course materials are developed by teachers. So the Spanish I’m learning has a sort of prissy quality. It’s not what I hear on the street.

I go up to my friend Marce where he’s trying to coax another hundred miles out of his rusty wreck of a car. I say “Buenos días, Marce.” He replies “¿Que tal?” What the hell does that mean? Meanwhile the teenager down the street calls to his friend “¿Que onda, guey?” (Don’t , under any circumstances, use that expression.)

When I speak Spanish, I sound like a dork to native speakers. No coursework will ever correct that. The only solution is to go out there and talk to people. That way, poco a poco, I find I learn to speak like a (heavily accented) native.