Garrison Keillor Told Me It Was A Bad Idea.

Doña C was talking about one of her protegees. Said woman is French, and married to an American- an American who won't learn French. Dastardly. What will become of their potential children?

As I may have noted, I no longer assume that the Conquistadors use guile. This is because C and his mother do not, and his father now believes that I am as dense as his wife and child. It is wonderful.

So I spoke from the heart. I said "That poor man." I'm an idiot.

After I spent a third of an hour agreeing that being bilingual is important, and that dedicated people can apply themselves and learn a second language as adults, I want to defend my side of the story. Can I do it with an unnecessarily convoluted metaphor? I can indeed.

I'm not a great swimmer. Due to certain physiological characteristics, I can float for a very long time, but I'm not fast or strong. But I love to swim. Given the opportunity, I will swim five times a week. I am comfortable in the water. Like a duck. Like a cork. Like a platypus. One of the best advantages of switching to Health At Every Size is that now I can float on my back indefinitely. I am, in all senses of the word, buoyant. When I swim, I am in my element- literally and figuratively.

I feel pretty much the same about speaking English. It's very comfortable to speak, obviously, and I'm confident enough in my abilities to try new things. I use words when I'm not sure of the meaning or pronunciation, I can throw in little quips and puns- it is a delight to speak. I like my language.

In both endeavors, my comfort predates my competence. My dear parents emphasized safely, then confidence, then ability. Once they were sure I wasn't going to drown or run around yelling "FART" all the time, I was encouraged to have fun.

I'm very vain. I don't like to do things I'm bad at. And it would take a long, long time to be good at speaking Spanish. I am weak and selfish. I am sorry, honored in-laws, but learning would have to be fun.

And apparently, expatriates are not big on new languages being fun. They are conscientious people. They want you to be precise, accurate, and to practice on your own. They are pretty much insufferable about this. Why would learning a new language be fun and exciting? Why would you bob about, like an inept duck? Get with the program.

My husband, who is not conscientious, has adsorbed this attitude. This is not helpful. I will point out that in the last nine years, I have gone from yammering on in mediocre Spanish to silence and a dread of short sentences full of pronouns. ("Dile que no lo haga." is one of the most terrifying sentences ever.) My beloved spouse can now keep up in conversations composed entirely of unspoken references to puns- and I think his vocabulary is 1.2 times larger. This is because terror is not a learning tool, and feeling clever is fun.

We spouses of the bilingual are delicate flowers, people. Cosset us. For the sake of your descendants.