'Vaqueros' is Spanish for Jeans

On learning a new language as a mom in mid-life.

I’m fresh off a five-day Spanish language intensive and basically fluent en español now. Just kidding. I can barely count to 100. But what an experience. Want to hear about it? (Si si, por favor, you say because if you just say, Si, it means “Yes, but not really.”)

To start, there are seven of us in the class – four French-speaking African priests (from Cameroon, Uganda, Burkina Faso, and Togo), a Russian architect, a woman from Shanghai who speaks near-perfect English, and me. Our teachers – there are two; one I really like and one I can’t follow at all – are native Spanish speakers. They know very little English and zero French, Russian, or Mandarin, so all instruction is in Spanish. Sometimes, because the Russian and Africans speak a teensy bit of English, and I speak a smidgen of French, we help each other out. But a majority of the most successful learning happens visually – in writing and through the use of big gestures and our 101 workbooks. Sometimes we break into groups and practice conversation (so hard). I’m definitley learning things, and there are moments when I feel like it’s clicking. But mostly, I fear it is not.

The cafeteria at the International House: Madrid, where I’ve been studying Spanish.

Will I become fluent in Spanish during my 3-month stay in Madrid? No. But that’s not the point. The point is to exercise my brain and learn how to politely ask for things like a glass of water without sounding like a fool. Mi gusteria uno vaso de agua. As I’ve mentioned before, Madrid is not like other European cities where you can always sort of find someone who speaks some English. If not for my family, our nanny, and the handful of parents I’m now friendly with at the kids’ school, I could go weeks here without having any real exchange with another human at all.

I recently listened to Ezra Klein interview The Anxious Generation’s Jonathan Haidt. Towards the end, Klein talks about this idea of friction: “What AI is is functionally the collapse of all friction between you and any desire that can be fulfilled by a computer,” he says. This really hit me because, to my detriment or not (and some will say I’m being archaic, I know), I’ve resisted the use of AI and things like Google Translate here. I’ve done this consciously in order to make living in Madrid without speaking Spanish feel difficult; to create the friction that Klein talks about, and consequently ignite more than a desire but a need to learn a new language. Honestly, what but absolute necessity and the promise of relief from discomfort would make me do such a thing right now? General interest is too great a luxury with two little kids in a foreign country. My time is limited. My brain is already stretched so thin by parenting – often solo because my husband is working long hours on locations outside Madrid. It’s the emery board-rough rub I feel every time I check out at the grocery store that’s forced – no, inspired! – me to get my ass to class.

Refusing to use AI was a choice I made in order to motivate me to take Spanish. It’s also a sign of my age, which is up there enough to know life without smart phones. Apps are not typically my natural, first line of defense. The thing I didn’t orchestrate or think about when I signed up for Spanish was that my daughter Georgia would, at this exact moment in time, be hardcore-learning how to read. Every night, as we sit down with a book from her school book bag, I watch the wheels in her big-little brain spin as her mouth exaggerates the sounds she sees on the page. She licks her lips and squints her eyes; stutters and starts over and over again. It’s frustrating. It’s revelatory. I know what she is feeling. It is what I feel (and do) when I try to say pelicula (movie) and preferir (to prefer) and – my nemesis – the letter V (spelled “uve” but pronounced “ube”). That Georgia and I should be working so hard on learning how to recognize and say words and letters and sounds that feel awkward to us – at the same time; at the same level – is unbelievably cool. She’s six. I’m 44. Life is really wonderful sometimes.

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Here are 3 things I discovered this week…

Good Bye, Rita: Designed in Madrid, these sunglasses look super expensive and come in all of today’s trendy shapes. I bought the Berlin in Gold. The Trocadero was too big for my face, but I wanted it.

Good bye, Rita eyewear is designed in Madrid. From top: Roma in Print ($210), Trocadero in Green ($87), Berlin in Gold (my personal pick, $210), Sienna in Black ($110), and Sofia in Brown ($75).

Jarrón Crochet de Cerámica Artesanal: You know when ceramics just speak to you? These rough-hewn vases that look like fish scales – or ruffled skirts, or topographic maps, depending on how you look at them – screamed: Take me home!

I can’t stop thinking about this crochet flor blanco vase at Matutahome.

Elia Maurizi Sneakers: Should I just include a new sneaker in every dispatch from Madrid going forward? I find a good one every week. Elia Maurizi is an Italian shoe company that offers many kinds of shoes with biodegradable soles made of rubber from Caucciù trees. The Rosina is my favorite. I don’t like the perforated toe on this style, personally, but don’t let my weird hang-up stop you. (P.S. They do a very good boat shoe that no one you know will have.)

Super cute and “last in stock”. Clockwise from top left: The Rosina, Brenda, and Xenia sneakers by Elia Maurizi.

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My Spanish intensive course continues next week until the bank holiday – the equivalent of Labor Day here – on Thursday & Friday. I plan to take the kids to London for the long weekend (any recs?). Thanks for reading. I have really loved all of your comments, encouragement, and tips on becoming trying to become bilingual. As always, Denim Forever.

Jane

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More links to things I’m loving…

Amanda Knox’s new memoir Free: My Search for Meaning is simply exceptional. I’m listening to it on Audible with a whole new level of respect and amazement (being a woman in a foreign country who doesn’t speak the language etc. right now myself).

Negative Underwear continues to impress me. My bra-less existence is confirmed by these.

I am now a woman who wears sunglasses and readers on my person – and sometimes layered – at the same time. Progressives, be damned!