On a language we don’t yet know

Back in Tasmania a couple of months ago we were sitting at an outdoor cafe and I decided to test out some Spanish on Jess. I delivered a carefully thought-through sentence. She listened attentively, lips barely moving, then repeated back to me what I'd said, in English.

"That fat woman over there eats too much food," she said, rather more loudly than I had anticipated.

There was this kind of humming silence where I, Jess and the lady in question processed what had just taken place and ultimately decided just to ignore the problem and move on, in the lady's case to the second half of her brisket-loaded fries.

Anyway, for six months before our arrival in Spain we've been practising Spanish with a couple of online tools. That plus several previous holidays here meant that we were a tiny step up from knowing zero about the language plus we knew how to find a lavatory.

But you're quickly brought back to Earth with a disheartening thud when you arrive here and try out what you've learned. Yes, we were quite proud to be able to clearly pitch requests like "Can I please have two red wines, a prawn risotto and one of those". The thud comes when the barman then asks you something in return, possibly nothing more taxing than "Would you like fries with that", "Where are you sitting" or even "Why do you keep coming into to our library asking for food".

Think of how a non Australian tourist would react in Australia to "G'daymate'owyagoin'". An American would have no idea what you're talking about let alone a Spanish dude.

I've discovered that here in Spain you can spot a non-Spanish tourist or a new arrival a mile away by the facial expression they assume the moment they are spoken to by a Spanish person. 

I think the most suitable word is 'hunted'.

The face completely drains of blood and loses muscle tension, except for around the eyes, which suddenly increase in size to something like a saucer. It looks like a scene from one of those films where the hero has been poisoned with a paralysing toxin that renders him unable to move but painfully aware that he's about to have a tarantula released up his nose.

At this point your six months of Duolingo and Pimsleur lessons dive out the window and you're left with nothing to do but stare at the speaker and wait for them to say something familiar like "Hello it is nice to meet you where is the train station".

Going out eating and drinking is one thing because no one loses a bolsa if you get it wrong. But in managing our visa process we would have been mad not to engage a local to come with us to City Hall and the police station to jump through the myriad hoops on the way to gaining residency and getting the lights on in the house. Pictured above is Guillermo, the real estate guy who found our apartment for us. He arranged just about everything bureaucratic that we needed to do, plus even managed phone calls from furniture delivery drivers in the days before we had a Spanish phone number. Every expat needs at least one Guillermo in their life.

You don't really appreciate a good couch until you don't have one.

But we couldn't rely on Guillermo forever so once I'd gotten a local phone number and bank account we set to ordering furniture online. It's mostly fine but some suppliers insist on phoning you to confirm you'll be home at the time of intended delivery. At least I think that's what they're doing. I answer the phone and I recognise words like 'your order', 'home', 'today', 'before 11.30' and 'table', so my strategy is simply to say "Si si si" a lot with the hope that the driver isn't turned back to the depot. Recently I've taken to saying "You'll be here around 11.30, yes or no?" which at least takes some of the guesswork about what's going to happen next.

Ted isn't experiencing anything like the challenges we are. If anything his hungry meow sounds suspiciously like ahora, which is Spanish fortuitously means 'now'.

It's lunch time, time to head out and practise maintaining facial integrity in the face of overwhelming linguistic assault.