Thursday CIty Life: Why Can't I Speak Spanish? Edition

When I was a wee lad, no more than 3or 4, I learned my first Spanish word: Agua.  I learned it from this Sesame Street segment:


Judging by the comments on youtube, this little 26 second blip inspired a nation of pre-K kids to crawl through living rooms like a man dying of thirst, or disgusted by his dirty hands.  I was one of those guys.

The point being, I had a leg up on the language.  Of course, when it came time in school to learn a language, all they offered me was French. (dry cough).  Don't get me wrong: I love French.  It is a beautiful language.  Many times, when I hear people speaking it, I can pick out phrases and just generally follow what is going on.  I can even speak it a little (drier cough). 

Here's my only problem with French: it isn't Spanish. I tried to remedy this situation in college, when I was introduced to the world of...Destinos.


It's basically a soap opera that teaches you Spanish while following Racquel Rodriquez in her search for a long lost person.  Racquel es una abogada, don't ya know.  Yeah, i'm not sure why it didn't exactly grab me either. (driest cough).

Long story short: I feel cheated.  Here in the District, I live in an area with a large latino community.  Being able to speak Spanish would, almost immediately, make me feel more a part of my neighborhood. Parlez-vous-ing the francais doesn't really get me anywhere fast. Or allow me to understand what the nice lady at Taqueria D.F. is saying on the phone.  Or allow me to translate what "el feo gringo" means, instead of smiling meekly and then, much later at home with the google thesaurus, figuring out what was actually said.  Damnit.  Although, that gringo was pretty fugly.  Silly ugly gringos.

So, my resolution is to remedy this situation as quickly as possible.  Rosetta Stone, here I come.  The good lord willing, this time next year I will be able to at least speak Spanish as well as John Wayne did in "Rio Bravo".  I think that means "Brave River".  Maybe I'll just start with all the words that have to do with agua and move forward from there, given my confidence that I will never not understand that word.  Maybe start with the word for rain, move onto beverages, then branch out with things that mix with agua, things that don't mix with agua....etc.

Stay tuned for my first Spanish blog post, summer of 2014.