Here's the deal. I have tried off and on to learn to speak the Spanish language my entire life. My parents spoke it. My grandparents spoke it. Aunts, uncles, and cousins spoke it. In our home, my parents, siblings, and I spoke English... unless there was something my parents didn't want us to know... then they spoke Spanish. Needless to say, my siblings and I did pick up a little :)
When my mom was growing up, it was impossible for her NOT to notice the disparity in levels of success of the people around her. Those who spoke English appeared much more successful, more often educated than those she knew who spoke only Spanish. She decided that her children would be fluent English speakers and that learning Spanish wasn't really necessary.
For us, it was normal to grow up understanding everything in school and about half of what was spoken at family functions. Occassionally we would ask my dad to teach us Spanish (something he always seemed pleased with). However, he's a pretty big joker. He would teach us very useful words like, "rocket (cohete)" and "hotdog (hotdog)". Or, even better, he would speak to us in Spanish but not match his intonation and facial expressions to what he was saying, so as to trick us. For example: He might quickly say,"Quieres nalgadas?" with an eager, happy look on his face. We thought he was asking us if we wanted some money. So we would nod our heads and say, "Yes". Then he'd say, "Oh you want a spanking!" We would then feel sheepish and have to convince him that what we wanted was a dollar. At this point, he would be laughing at us! Sometimes, he'd turn it around. He'd quickly switch and ask, "Quieres dinero?" We'd answer with "No, we don't want a spanking." and he'd say, "OH, you don't want a dollar?"... He liked to keep us confused!
So you see. It just didn't happen. My 3 siblings and I are English-speakers. I would feel like a foreigner in a Spanish-speaking country. Worse, I feel like a foreigner downtown, around other Hispanics that speak Spanish. My goal this summer is to learn to speak, converse in Spanish. It outta be a fun ride!
