I am somewhere between conversant and cervesa ordering. When i am in Mexico, it gets much better pretty quickly. It helps that the people are so tolerant and easy going about my gaffes.

Hola Carleen,

Even after living for more than 5 years in the heartland of Mexico, after three years of high school Spanish and one year in college, the most Spanish that I offer up most days is "no puedo hablar Espanol," Por Que? "Soy muy muy perezoso."- (y/o arrogante Norte Americano o timido)

Although I am pretty good Spanish-wise with cognates and most anything to do with time, money, transportation, food, lodging, piedras,er, I mean rocks and mascotas (all of the survival stuff in my mundo).

Perhaps (ok, definitivamente!) the one Spanish phrase that I use in linguistically challenged social situations the most is "Maria, por favor, ayudame, ayudame, ayudame..."

Really liked your question and all of the responses that you have gotten.

Saludos,
Senor "None of the Above"

Hi Les,
I think you are being too modest! Anyone that can throw out words like "mascota" and "menudo" (not the soup) is conversant in my book!

Cheers!
carleen

Carleen, like Les, I had three years in high school. Millions of people have been born and millions have died since those happy anos. I kind of/sort of still know a bit. When I taught at a Catholic school where the students were from Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries, I got better at speaking rapidomente. This was especially true when working with my students who did not speak English.

That was 16 years ago. My Spanish comes and goes at the oddest times!

Hi Connie!

IMHO, Spanish is an "easy" language. Maybe it is that English grammar comes from the Latin and we have a lot of Latin in our vocab. I studied German for one year . . .it was so difficult!!! I can still order ein bier, bitte!

I have heard English has a lot of Germanic roots as well?

Yes, it is true. But for some reason, I couldn't make heads nor tails of German!