A couple of recent variations on the conversation below have made me want to put it up here. This conversation is all too common with uneducated people in the campo. It comes in various forms—from strangers in a pickup or people I know well, from kids or old people, etc. From a guanaco (male Salvadoran) or a guanaca (female Salvadoran), and hence I use the hip, gender-neutral “guanac@” in my script.
Guanac@: Your Spanish is very good.
Me: Thank you. It took a lot of work.
Guanac@: Is it true that you can also talk in a different way?
Me: Why yes, it’s called English. It’s actually a different language.
Guanac@: And can your dad talk that way too?
Me: Yes indeed. Not only my dad, but my whole family, and all my friends from the United States, and lots of other people all over the world.
Guanac@: And when you talk that way your friends understand you?
Me: You bet.
Guanac@: Really.
Me: Really.
Guanac@: When did you learn to speak that way?
Me: Ever since I was a baby, just the way you learned Spanish.
Guanac@: It must have been hard to learn.
Me: Not really. It’s something every kid does, just like the kids here learn Spanish from the time they’re a baby.
Guanac@: [pondering] …and when did your dad learn it?
Me: When he was a baby, just like everyone else with whatever language they speak natively.
Guanac@: [mind blown, retreats into silence]
It’s amazing to me that people can compliment me on my Spanish, indicating that they have a concept of second-language-learning, but fail to grasp the idea that other languages can be first languages.
