C.S. Lewis wrote a book called Studies in Words, in which he picks a word and analyzes the ever-loving crap out of it. And he doesn’t pick easy words, either. No, we’re talking “Life,” “World,” and “Sad.” It’s a fascinating book and one I reach for when I want to think a little more deeply about English and how I use it in my writing.
In December, I got serious about improving my Spanish. I went a little overzealous on Duolingo. I also began to engage anyone friendly enough or foolish enough to talk to me. Ten months later, I can read fairly well and my Duolingo performance is masterful, but the sticking point for me has been conversation. According to the highly unscientific source r/languagelearning, a lot of new learners get stuck here. Sure, they can conjugate the past subjunctive in the calm of their own homes, but when they are face-to-face with another human, they can’t remember the word for bathroom.
I try to be brave about speaking Spanish because I find that a brief conversation in which I’m forced to recall grammar, dredge up vocabulary, and listen as well as respond is worth fifty hours of Duolingo. The title of this post is a good example. Yesterday, I was talking to a person about grocery bags. I wanted to express that the bags were flimsy and that she might need to double-bag. I said, “doble,” which seemed to be understood, but because I also wanted to make conversation — I talk too much in all languages — I said “La bolsa está delgada” by which I meant, the bag is thin. The woman laughed and said, “se cae,” which means, “falls,” as in, the items in the bag fall out. I assumed that she laughed because “delgada” was the wrong word, a word only used to describe people, for example. But when I said, “Las bolsas se caen” to another person, they replied, “Las bolsas son delgadas.”
Aha! Vindication as to my use of the word “delgada(s),” but it was only today, as I write this, that I realized my issue was with not the adjective, but with the verb. I used estar as if the bag was temporarily thin, when, like the second speaker, I should’ve been using ser to indicate a permanent way of being for these bags.
Whew. What a ride, what an incredible difference between a quiet contemplation of words with C.S. Lewis and a thirty-second interaction about the flimsiness of a grocery bag. I love that my relationship with language is like this, complex and surface, deep and shallow. Delgada or very strong, depending on the moment.