I started learning Spanish when I was 11 and despised it. Almost six years later, I've fallen in love with the language. It's something I want to devote my life to, something I never want to stop getting better at. As I work toward fluency, it sometimes feels like the harder I try to become better, the worse I get in Spanish and English.
The first issue I properly noticed was substituting words. Normally mixing up little ones like "and" and "y" doesn't pose a problem, but bigger phrases are different. If I bump into someone in a hallway, I'm just as likely to say "lo siento," as I am to say "sorry." If they bump into me, I might say "no problem" or I might say "no pasa nada." To me, the phrases are interchangeable, but to monolingual people...not so much. Some of the people close me have figured out most of the phrases I use by now, but the vast majority of them have not. If I had a quarter for every time I had to translate a phrase that I thought was common knowledge...I'd have a lot of quarters.
I always joke that the more Spanish I learn, the worse my English gets. This is mostly a joke, as my grades in English will tell you. However, I have noticed that my grammar has gone all wonky. I used to be "that kid" - the one that would correct the grammar of friends and strangers alike. It's a wonder nobody strangled me. Now though, I've found myself mixing up English and Spanish grammar. I'll put the adjective after the noun instead of before. I'll say "the ____ of _____" instead of "_____'s _____." I have even committed the most atrocious of grammatical crimes: The double negative.
As my English and Spanish mix, I've become worse at recognizing which is which. I remember during spring break, I was at Mount Vernon with my family. While we were standing in line, there was a block of text carved into a wall so we could read it. I can't for the life of me remember what it said now, but I remember being very confused. I couldn't understand why they'd have a Spanish quote at the entrance to an American landmark. After a few minutes of being confused, I realized it was English. Go ahead. Laugh. I know you want to. While that was the most comical instance of this error, it's actually become quote a common mishap. If the first word in anything looks a bit like a Spanish word, I'm going to assume the thing is in Spanish.
Although these amusing errors can be inconvenient, the most irritating thing about learning a second language is, without a doubt, the fact that I'm still learning. To an English speaker, I probably sound pretty fluent. On one memorable occasion I received the highest of compliments: "You're better than Dora the Explorer." However, to anyone who actually speaks Spanish, I sound like a four-year-old. I'll start a sentence seven different times before getting it right, only to discover that I can't finish because I forgot the word I needed. I stumble over my words constantly. I forget accents. I conjugate wrong. I can't even roll my r's. But that's the cool thing, I guess: I'm still learning. I have so much room to grow in my control of the language. Fluency is a goal that will take a long time to reach, but I love striving toward it.
