And How Do You Spell That?

Today while I was doing my Spanish homework (present tense of -er and -ir verbs, exciting!) I realized that the more Spanish I learn, the more French I forget. And that bothers me, because I looove French. So before any other foreign words take off from my unstable brain, I thought I'd tell you about my long-term relationships, love affairs, and one-night stands with languages.

So far in my life I have studied, um, nine languages. How's that for promiscuity? But before you start judging me too harshly, let me clarify that I'm using the word "studied" very generously here. I'm counting any language for which at one point or another I've made an effort to learn a few words, either by reading a textbook or by harassing native speakers to translate this or that curse word. If you ask me now how many languages I actually speak, the answer is two and a half.*

But let us begin!

Bulgarian. My mother tongue, so it doesn't really count. How kids learn their native language is a vast and tangled mess I don't have the braincells to delve into. 

Russian. I studied Russian in third, fourth, and fifth grade. It was mandatory and I hated it, because for the life of me I could not memorize the damn case endings, despite the many neat tables and colored cheat-sheets I made for myself. Thank god for 1989, because after that Russian became optional (and I opted for English). However, I did try to pick it up again in my senior year in college, because I was dating a guy from Belarus. I didn't get very far. I still understand some, just because it's so close to Bulgarian, but you will never get a grammatically correct Russian sentence out of me!

English. Sometimes people are surprised at how good my English is and they ask me how long I've been living in the States. (For the record, yes, the surprise annoys me greatly!) The question they should be asking instead is how long I've been studying English. And that would be since the sixth grade. I.e., for eighteen years. Nothing surprising there: you can learn to do ANYTHING in eighteen years, let alone speak English, which is a very EASY language! (See above about torturous case endings in Russian and below about conjugation in French. FYI, Bulgarian nouns and adjectives have three genders. Three! You think you can scare me with your irregular past participles?)

French. French is the love of my live, so this is embarrassing to admit, but I've been studying French on and off for about 15 years. Mostly off, so I am still not fluent by any measure. I understand a lot but can't speak it very well, and the conjugation rules and I are still nothing more than distant acquaintances. However, I've been reading and listening to Harry Potter in French, and that's been a blast. (Of course, that's only possible because I've read the English Harry Potter books at least 8 times each -- some twice as much -- and know them by heart, but still.)

Albanian. Here's a good one! I dated an Albanian guy my freshman and sophomore year in college. At one point I decided I should try to learn how to say a few things in Albanian, so he gave me an English-Albanian phrasebook. It was the most fun I've ever had learning a language: I didn't learn much, but I had some good laughs at the suggested dialogues. "Will you take me on a tour of your factory?" "Last year the productivity of this factory exceeded the party's quota by 20 percent." Gold, I tell you, gold! The only Albanian word I remember now is "faleminderit," which means "thank you." In retrospect, I could've ended up with worse.

Greek (and Latin, barely). I never truly studied Greek (and Latin even less), but in college I took a class called "Greek and Latin Elements in English." We did learn the Greek alphabet, but the rest of the class was devoted to learning basic Greek (and Latin) words that are still used in English. My favorite example: hippopotamus. From "hippo" = horse and "potamos" = river. Riverhorse! Fat hoofed creatures aside, that class came in VERY handy when I was studying for the GRE, because I could guess what some of the words meant even if I didn't know the exact definition. 

Romanian. The year after I graduated from college I lived with a few Romanian friends of mine (in Bulgaria and later in D.C.). I didn't speak a word of Romanian when I moved in with them, but by the end I could follow the conversations and even say a couple of short phrases myself. I did nag a lot though. "What does maine mean?" "How do you say call me?" I've forgotten most of what I knew, but I can still say "Etajul trei s-a mutat a etajul doi." Which means "the third floor has moved to the second floor." Useful, no?  

Italian. Ah, Italian! Such a gorgeous language! My friend Abby and I signed up for an Italian class two years ago. I think I went to five classes total? Maybe four. But that fall I also spent two weeks in Italy, and by the second week I could, surprisingly, understand a lot of what was going on around me. And I could ask for directions and buy bus tickets and order espresso lungo! Alas, I've forgotten most of that too. But Italian is a language I would definitely go back to.

Spanish. I am currently enrolled in an "Intro to Spanish" class, because of our upcoming trip to Spain (husband and I). The French (and the trace amounts of Italian) are helping me with the comprehension skills, but hindering everything else. And, por favor, why on earth do you need two verbs for "to be"? How many ways can one BE?

That last one is not a rhetorical question, so feel free to weigh in. And by all means share your linguistic romances too!

*Bulgarian, English, and half French.