Mezclando des langues

More about language, Anna? Golly gee, you are so creative.

Seriously, though. Traveling around Spain the last two weeks for break, my poor brain has been fried. I'm not sure how people come to be fluent in 5+ languages, I can't even handle two.

Upon arrival to Barcelona, my travel buddy came to meet me at the bus station with two Spaniards she had met at the hostel earlier that day. This girl is ridiculously fluent in Spanish (although she won't admit it herself), so on the walk back to the hostel she had no problems keeping up a conversation with them, joking around about her Mexicanized Spanish or marveling at the quantity of prostitutes on the streets as we made our way through the red light district. I, however, did not have such an easy time.

Every. Word. Came. Out. French.

I've decided that at this point in time, I have two language modes in my head: English mode, and foreign language mode. The latter seems to be completely overloaded with French at the moment; Spanish is packed away in boxes in some dark closet, cold and forgotten. Upon trying to call it back to use, I've found that entire chunks of my Spanish knowledge have seemingly disappeared. I can't produce the language as easily anymore. Although I could understand it perfectly well, there would be words and verb conjugations and syntactical constructions that would come out completely wrong, if at all.

Although it got a little easier as the trip wore on (my first success being able to semi-fluently negotiate my way into Easter mass at the cathedral in Seville where my friends were already seated), I don't feel like I ever got back to the level I reached while in Costa Rica. I'm highly considering taking an upper-level Spanish class upon my return next semester, to force myself back into it. I'm hoping I haven't lost it for good.

This has me really wondering how things will go for me in the next few years. I'd like to go to Brazil for at least a year after I graduate, but will I lose my French while I'm down there? I suppose it goes to show that if you don't use it, you lose it, but how exactly does one keep up more than two foreign languages at a time? Although my career plan is fuzzy at best, I see myself doing something involving translation/interpretation somewhere down the road, after a few years' travel getting some more language experience under my belt. How best to gain new languages without losing the older ones in the process?

It'll take more dedication, I think. More motivation to seek out opportunities to practice, less shyness and fear of making a fool of myself. This is what I want to do, right?

Right. Go team.