On Saturday afternoon, with my sister in town, we spent some time at Casablanca (a nail salon on the Upper West Side) enjoying mani/pedis. The women working in the shop were primarily Korean and Puerto Rican, and I was fortunate that Eva finished with a client just as it was my turn to take a seat.
Eva spent most of the time during which she was working on my feet chatting with her colleague, Ana, who was at the next station. Despite never speaking Spanish beyond an intermediate level and not having studied it for years, I was able to follow much of the flow of their conversation. Some of it was rather unflattering commentary about the woman running the salon and her ingratiating attitude with customers (which they resent), but most of it revolved around a guy they were interested in, and the speculation of who among their circle he was dating.
What impressed me most, while I was shamelessly eavesdropping, was that the pace of conversational Spanish didn’t prove difficult. I was able to follow the topics, and didn’t get overly hung up when I couldn’t translate a word in my head—instead I listened for inflection and puzzled out meaning from the overall context.
That’s a level of cognizance that I didn’t realize I had, and one that I most definitely can’t afford to squander. Much as I would love to learn French and Italian, I’m going to focus my language-learning on Spanish. Which means that I actually need to focus on it—putting time into lessons and reading, find some conversational partners, and friends who can help me practice.
Anyone up for some conversación?
