Language Woes

You would assume that any language woes of mine would be directly involved with the Norwegian language and my struggles therein, since I have recently moved to Norway and been thrown headfirst into the språk. Norwegian, however, is going quite well. I am not thriving by any means, but rather doing quite well with surviving. I am not fluent by any means, but I am holding my own with communicating. And surprisingly, it is actually Spanish that is the cause of my language woes! Come on, I have been studying Spanish since I was 15, I lived in Spain and spent the last year of my college education analyzing old, famous, dead Spanish poets. Who would have ever guessed that at this stage in my life, speaking Spanish would be more challenging than speaking Norwegian?

It is 100% crazy. I do not mean to say that I now have more knowledge of the Norwegian language than I do of Spanish. It is certain that I am more fluent in Spanish: I have a larger vocabulary and much more experience speaking the language...but for whatever reason, it is much more natural for me to speak Norwegian now.

There is a man named Tesfaye that I speak Spanish with once in awhile. He was born in Ethiopia, but lived in Cuba for 14 years so he is much more cubano than africano. We met on Friday for some coffee and in my mind it was an opportunity for me to intentionally practice Spanish. It was close to a disaster. I felt like I had regressed years in my Spanish development. Actually I can't remember a time when speaking Spanish was that difficult and took that much thinking! It used to be natural! It was impossible for me to say 'no', 'but', 'and', 'now', 'yes', 'I agree', 'thanks' and other small phrases in Spanish, I naturally responded in Norwegian and what resulted was a nasty mess and butchering of the two languages! (Not to mention a confused Tesfaye!)

Explanations? I have many, and I don't know if any of them are on target or not. It could be that it is just normal IN NORWAY for me to be speaking norsk...or maybe it was that I had met Tesfaye at Poesi and I am used to speaking Norwegian there (on the job). It could even just be due to the fact that I have submerged my brain so deeply in Norwegian in my desperate attempt to learn as fast as possible, that it is going to take me awhile to kick the cobwebs off my Spanish skill set. Whatever the reason, it is really frustrating when something that used to be second nature becomes rusted shut in the corners of your brain.

I must learn to be able to keep the two separate. But how to do that?? The plan now is to read Norwegian and Spanish out loud back to back to try and help my poor, confused mind differentiate. I want to continue meeting with Tesfaye once a week and work out some more kinks with my spoken Spanish. I need to engage the language more, read books, write more emails etc etc. I think it is true what they jokingly say--if you don't use it, you lose it!