Serbspañol

I have lost my ability to speak Spanish.

Last week, a woman from Madrid came to visit our office and I could not speak with her. I understood most of what she said, although Spanish accents are very difficult for my Latin-American-accent-trained ear. But I could not say much of anything. I would try to put together sentences in my head and do things like conjugate Spanish verbs in Serbian ways or mix vocabulary terribly. And what I could say had a Serbian accent. Ugly.

I knew this was coming. My ability to write Spanish has been deteriorating over recent months. A week ago, I was typing an e-mail and forgot the word for Friday.

It's so frustrating to be losing my Spanish. In the long term, it will probably be more useful than Serbian. In the short term, it is not, so I will continue to replace Spanish vocabulary with Serbian words.

I am in awe of polyglots.