¡Vive en España!

"¡Vive en España!" That's what the Spanish man in the waiting room at the local health clinic said incredulously to the woman with whom he was chatting across the aisle, as an English man disappeared through the door into the doctor's office. And he sighed. And the meaning was clear: "This man lives in Spain. Why can't he speak Spanish?"

The English man had asked us, as he rose to take his turn when Johannes and I came out of the doctor's office, "How do you say "It's getting better" in Spanish?" And Johannes, ever helpful and a near-native speaker of Spanish, volunteered to go into the office with him and help him say to the doctor that it--whatever it was--was getting better, and perhaps to facilitate the conversation a little more. After all, we had just come out of that same doctor's office, and we knew he spoke no English, that he spoke Spanish very quickly and not clearly, and that he was difficult to understand even if you were a near-native speaker.

I sighed when I heard "¡Vive en España!" because it was said in exactly the same tone and with the same disapproval that I have heard too many Americans express when talking about Hispanics and other immigrants in the U.S. "But they live in the U.S....!" and presumably should be able to speak English on demand.

I sighed because I always suspected, and because I now know from experience, that it is one thing to be able to speak Spanish, or any foreign language, and another thing entirely to be able to speak it well enough to feel competent when the subject matter is technical or the situation is stressful.

I sighed because I know that I, despite many years of studying and practicing Spanish in the past, and many more scheduled for the future, know in my bones that there will most likely be times ahead when I will not feel comfortable or competent--in the medical emergencies, legal proceedings, and other dependent situations that must be faced as we get older.

And I sighed because I wanted to be able to explain to the Spanish man and his conversation partner that most of us foreigners know that we should try harder in Spanish, and some of us do try harder than others, but that proficiency and fluidity in a foreign language do not necessarily come with a certain degree of effort or after a certain number of years--and definitely not when one moves to a new country at the age of 60 or more--and that speaking to a doctor can be one of those emotional circumstances that just seem to make you forget whatever it is that you have learned....and that all of this is no excuse.

But this matter of hearing, for the first time, two local Spanish residents give vent to some impatience and frustration with the large number of European immigrants that Spain by and large has welcomed to its Mediterranean coast for decades, made me a little surprised and emotional. And I did not trust myself to be able to embark on a complicated conversation about language in a language in which I am not fluent. So I did not take upon my shoulders the burden of defending immigrants with insufficient language skills. I buried my head in my book and continued reading in Spanish until the man and his translator emerged from the doctor's office.