I take back...

any time in my life when I have laughed at my mom's accent or made fun of her for it in any way. Why? because now that i am here in Chile, trying my best to grasp the language surrounding me, i realize how truly disheartening it can be. it is hard enough to keep all of the verb subject and tense conjugations, masculine/feminine endings and articles, and general vocabulary in line, and then add onto that trying not to sound embarrassingly un-chilena and basically my brain has to work at about 100 times its natural pace just for me to be able to communicate. i think now i have a better understanding of what my mom has had to go through to be able to speak english as well as she does. i would say the same thing about my dad, but i wasn't around when he learned spanish, and from what i can tell, it came pretty easily to him. i do have to say for the most part though, that everyone has been very encouraging in their comments to me about my progress with spanish, and i do feel like i am getting better and better at it everyday. after being here for 2 months, the words are starting to flow a little easier, i don't have to think as much about what i want to say, and maybe, just maybe, i even have a little less pronounced accent. just today, 3 separate people at the university complimented me on how good my spanish was, especially in comparison with other exchange students. i would be lying if i said that didn't make me feel good, but i also would be lying if i said i always knew what tense i was supposed to be speaking in. haha.
every now and then i will overhear a conversation or someone will ask me a question in a format i am not used to, and suddenly i start to feel like i don't know any spanish at all. as if that isn't bad enough, my tongue also has this uncanny knack of turning into a taste-bud covered brick at the times when i need it most (this also happens to me when speaking english haha). despite these things, i am coming to terms with the facts that there will probably be many more times when i will look and sound like a blithering idiot, and that i will probably always have an accent, but i am really starting to see that none of that really matters if i am able to get my point across clearly most of the time.
and so, in closing, i direct this to my mom: thank you for always putting up with us when we laugh at the way you say things. none of us (except daddy, who doesn't make fun of you) can even dare to say that we know half of much spanish as you do english, and i am very proud of both you and daddy for how well you have mastered your second languages. so next the time we ask you to say "focus" or "yellow," you just remind me of this blog entry and i will shut up. former girl scout's honor.