Never Try Anything

You may have been wondering what became of the actress from the English Patient who plays the torturess, famous for the scene in which she removes Willem Dafoe's fingers using cheese wire?

Well, call off the search: she's alive and teaching Spanish in Buenos Aires.

On Thursday evenings, after a long school day, I traipse into town for my weekly Spanish lesson. Good lessons leave you bouncing out the door and down the street, a high that lasts right up until your next Spanish conversation (upon which the bubble bursts, and you remember that people 'out there' do not speak slowly and clearly, they do not only speak in the present simple, and they are totally indisciplined and are forever introducing new vocabulary not covered in Chapter 1. And they never write key words on the whiteboard before they start speaking). Good lessons are, nevertheless, wonderful, life-affirming things.

But bad lessons. Bad lessons are awful: confidence pours out of you, the city becomes an impossibly complex place and the most basic of needs, such as the ability to buy food, appear as insurmontable objects, the humiliation emphasised by the fact that I teach at a school where the Kindergarten kids are perfectly billingual.

So, bad lessons are bad enough, but that's usually with a regular teacher who knows what you've learnt and all that, and she knows that you're just having an 'off day' rather than assumes you are profoundly and irretrievably stupid.

So you do NOT want a bad lesson with a cold, unforgiving, relentless Germanic torturess... No, you do not want that.

Now, in an attempt at impartiality, in defense of this perra (as a Spanish speaker), I was not 'on form' (and when 'on form' means answering 'Si' to the most basic of questions, form is important). I was exceptionally tired after a busy weekend, a busier week, and sleep deprived having too much fun with me wee bro and Ali staying Sunday-Thursday. However, I do not think anything could have prepared me, nor excused her, for what happened in that two hours.

If you have tried to learn anything new recently you will, hopefully, empathise with the depth of my humilition. I have believed for a long time now that people really should not try new things. If you weren't good at them at birth, or at the latest aged 14, then it is frankly pathetic to try to better yourself now.

Yes, this attitude has never been receieved with anything other than scorn and disgust from those of you out there who believe that self-improvement and learning is a key to a fulfilling and enjoyable life. And, yes, it does make my career choice a rather ironic one.

But you and I differ, you see. You still have your thumbs, as Willem and I might say.

How can I explain? OK. In an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa arrives home upset having failed to win a competition at school. Someone else cheats, and wins. In need of her father's reassurance that everything is good in the world, she pours her heart out about the injustice and pain she has experienced. He offers her advice that I wish I followed more often:

'Well honey, you've tried and you've failed. The lesson to learn is: never try anything.'

Case in point: Thursday 1800 - 2000, Room 2, The Edena School, Rivadavia, Buenos Aires. Present: one student, one desk, one text book, one spool of cheese wire, one towel, one basin of cold water, and one terrifying Germanic torturess coldly viewing her prey for weak spots.

It wasn't long before she found many. I revealed, foolishly, that I was an English Teacher. I said this by way of a subtle apologise for the lack of quality (abundance, accuracy, sense, vocabulary, intonation...) of my Spanish. Somehow I had challenged her to the Great Battle of Grammatical Pedantic...ness.

As you can see in any language, she won.

It's pretty important to have some sort of warm up before you plunge into another language. My previous teacher, the nice one, Mercedes, would ask me how I am, listen patiently to my rambling anecdotes, laugh if I got something wrong.

This teacher opened with a long speech, possibly about the importance of grammatical correctness in an otherwise Godless society. She stopped, perhaps an indication that I should speak. I had no idea what I was supposed to say, so I said, apologetically, 'Lo siento. Estas hablando un poco rapido.' (Sorry, you are speaking a bit fast.)

Upon which she said, in baby-speak: 'Com-o se llamo?

Not thinking, I'd already decided she would say 'Como estas?' (How are you?), and I replied automatically to 'What is your name?' with: 'Bien. Y vos?'.

My name is 'Good. And you?'

I enjoy being patronised as much as the next person, but did try to defend myself. I constructuted, I promise you, the finest sentence I am capable of producing in this confusing tongue:

'Perdon, estoy bien, pero un poco cansado. (Excuse me. I'm fine, but a bit tired.) Soy un professor de ingles en una escuela bilinguil, y tengo que hablar en ingles todos los tiempos. (I'm an English teacher at a billingual school, and I have to speak English the entire time). Entonces, es un poco dificile por cambio mi mente a castellano de ingles. (As such, it is rather difficult to 'change my thinking' to Spanish from English)'

I paused. Mercedes would have either stood and applauded or rewarded me with a biscuit had I constructed such a magnificent 'oracion' as this, and possibly both if I got the masculine and feminine forms correct. (I like Mercedes) But this was not Mercedes, as she had already, pointedly, pointed out.

The merciless reply? In perfect English, 'I am an English and a Spanish teacher and the grammatical forms are very similar.' (Incidentally a TOTAL lie. I checked.)

'Si, entiendo, pero todas las palabras son diferentes. Ha ha.' (Yes, I 'understand', but all the the words are different. My attempt to lighten the atmosphere with a little joke.

She did not 'warm' to this. In fact, I truly cannot describe accurately the look of, how can I put it, scornful boredom on her face.

'Hmm. Vale. Numero 3...'

Two minutes down, I thought, one hundred and eighteen to go... Grin and bear it, chap. Brave face. Honour and all that. Soldier's death. Who needs thumbs?