Never Retire: I Don’t Have a Personality in Spanish Yet

And that might actually be an advantage

It’s not often that somebody tries to drop the mic in response to a newsletter post.

And via email.

Power move.

In response to Sunday’s post—

Never Retire: The Problem With Spain Isn’t Spain—It’s the People Monetizing It

I received this reply—

here you are asking for money to start YOUR business there.

To which I replied—

Thanks for the reply.

I think the distinction is clear. I'm not creating fear and then taking advantage of the situation. This is my work. And one way we get paid is by reader/subscriber support.

I don't think I should even have to explain this.

In honor of that interaction—

Never Retire: What Is Bike Culture And Why It Matters To Cities

Speaking of mic drops—

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the first time I—to give what I did more force than it deserves—shot somebody down in Spanish.

Never Retire: The Fine Line Between Respect And Being Respected

When you move to a new country where you’re only learning the language, you constantly fight a battle. A tug of war between your developed, though (hopefully) always-evolving personality in your native language and the new language you can barely speak.

Personality—the combination of characteristics, behaviors, thoughts, and emotional patterns that define how a person consistently interacts with the world and others.

It can be frustrating at times.

You can’t speak Spanish yet, so you don’t have—and have no business having—a personality in Spanish. It’s a work in progress.

Do I say—

• Hasta luego

• Hasta lue

• Ha lue

• Ta lue

• Ta luego

• ’Sta luego

As my Spanish instructor, Jordi, told me, you must try them all on and see which fits you.

Good advice. But it still feels weird.

Almost like any attempt to slang up a familiar phrase comes off as too casual for a new language learner making their way in a foreign land. Poser.

It’s an entirely different story for Spanish speakers. They have personalities in Spanish. They earned them!

Which brings up another set of related issues.

Jordi once told me a story about people he knows from Argentina. One has kept their Argentinian way of speaking Spanish intact while in Spain. The other has tried to adapt their tongue to how people talk in Spain. The first friend has a problem with the second friend adjusting.

I can see both points. There are strong arguments on both sides, which, in a world where we’d rather all just get along, means that each side offsets one another and there’s no argument. Live and let live (which absolutely feels like the vibe here in Valencia).

You see it all the time—different ways of speaking Spanish colliding. Usually, it’s not much of a collision. But sometimes it feels a little weird. But it has less to do with Spanish and more to do with personality.

We had lunch not long ago with someone who is from a Spanish-speaking country and speaks Spanish as their first language. As this person interacted with a server in Spanish, their personality came through in a way that might be a more common expression in their country but not here.

Being set in your Spanish ways can mean not adjusting your personality to your setting. Again, this is more of a personality issue than a language one, but it applies to my situation and intrusive thoughts.

When you don’t speak the language, you have an advantage of being able to feel out the culture and choose where to adapt your personality to it (or not) that native speakers don’t have.

Amid all the anxiety around learning the language, this is pretty cool!

Navigating a new culture as you learn its language and form your (newish) personality within the culture and language is a lot like running a business—almost any business, really, including the one I am running.

You’re constantly assessing situations and deciding which battles to pick (I pick a minimal number, like 2 or 3 a year tops!)—

• Do I dispute this customer refund request or let it go?

• Do I take something I don’t think is right to task even though I feel bad for doing it?

• Do I reply to a snarky email from a subscriber with equal snark, take the high road or ignore it?

In my younger days, I took (nearly) everything as a personal affront. As an attack on my ego. I was who I was. That was my personality. I wasn’t about to apologize for it, let alone change it. So if you came at me—even in the slightest—I was coming at you.

That’s no way to live. And—as you learn—it’s also no way to get what you want. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

This is all about self-awareness and the balance between being respectful and maintaining your sense of self, which—hopefully—exists firmly and appropriately and stands on its own aside from the language you speak or the culture you can comfortably use slang in.