In near Spain orbit

This post has nothing much to do with language, but the starting point is, nonetheless, a series of videos and podcasts that I’ve recommended before. Ben and Marina, the Anglo-Spanish couple, produce this material under the Notes in Spanish banner. They currently have two strands: one devoted to pure language content, something – Six essential phrases with llevar – and the other is about how to learn – Mistakes are good, Fluency before accuracy – and so on. I like their work, and if you’re trying to learn Spanish and haven’t come across them, it’s well worth a look. Much of it is free, though they’re also happy to sell you additional materials.

In their How to get better at Spanish strand, they encourage people to read in Spanish, watch Spanish videos and television, and take every chance to speak. They often repeat the idea that “You learned your native language by listening” – the notion being that if it works for babies, why not for adults? It may be a little simplistic, but it’s fair enough.

People often tell me – especially those who don’t speak Spanish – that my Spanish sounds good. When I add that I’ve been in Spain for 21 years, their enthusiasm tends to fade. Spaniards, particularly those who have studied English, are frankly appalled by my lack of finesse after so long. After all, I’m surrounded by Spanish life, total immersion, and all that. How is it that after all that time I’m not essentially bilingual and culturally tuned in?

It’s easy enough to explain. We immigrants, who came here as older, probably non-working adults, tend not to live fully in Spain so much as alongside it. That’s not a criticism – it’s simply a reflection of how life often works out. Obviously, there are other factors – like having an aptitude (or not) for languages – but my main argument is that we exist in “near-Spain” orbits, brushing against its culture and language without always stepping right inside. I’m talking here about people roughly like me. Everyone’s circumstances differ, but for the sake of argument, let’s imagine an older couple living in Spain without children, reasonably financially independent and brought up in the UK. The same reasoning would apply to people from Burundi, Belgium, Botswana or Brazil.

So we sell up and move from the UK. For those who keep a foot in Britain and visit regularly, it can be even harder, since they get constant booster jabs of British culture, which makes it more difficult to assimilate the new lifestyle. That doesn’t make their Spanish experience any less valid, but the tried and tested may seem to offer advantages over the new and often confusing. Our cultural baggage is British: The Beatles, Dame Emma Thompson, the 1966 World Cup, Fawlty Towers, Old Trafford, Land of Hope and Glory and Tesco, as well as m.p.h. and Bonfire Night. We don’t have the faintest idea who Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Chicho Ibáñez Serrador or Carlos Arias Navarro were. We can’t sing along to Camilo Sesto, Miguel Ríos or Fórmula V at a wedding reception – and we’re often a bit lost during a Spanish wedding service, not only because it’s in a foreign language but because there isn’t even a Best Man. That’s the old stuff, the Only Fools and Horses equivalent. It’s not quite so difficult to become aware of what’s going on now, because it’s all there for the taking, though I still find it hard to remember names like Albert Barqué-Duran or Alauda Ruiz de Azúa. Again, culturally, the naming structure feels different – so I’m really happy that Rosalía is so successful at the moment because her name is easy to remember. And historically, most of us couldn’t tell you the order of Felipe II, Carlos III and Enrique IV, and as for María Pita or Blas de Lezo – well, who cares? Or rather, we would probably care if we’d grown up here – but our histories started somewhere else.

Most of us don’t really know what’s going on in the country we live in – again, perfectly understandable when any attempt to follow the news is derailed by unfamiliar stories delivered at breakneck speed in a language we’re still wrestling with. So we default to the BBC or Sky rather than Cadena SER, the 3 p.m. Telediario or the digital pages of El País. Many of us don’t even have an aerial for Spanish terrestrial TV, and it’s hard to know what’s on offer, so by the time we open the Spanish channel apps on our smart TVs we’re not entirely sure what it is we’re looking for. On those same sets, we’re far more likely to choose something on Netflix in English – perhaps with subtitles to show we’re making an effort – than to watch anything in Spanish. We may fully intend to “watch more in Spanish”, but comfort and habit usually win out, as they do for everyone.

The food we eat and the times we eat it rarely resemble those of a Spanish household. Minced beef from the supermarket is the same stuff Spaniards buy, but they’re hardly going to make a shepherd’s pie. And while the potatoes here are fine, they’re not quite King Edwards or Maris Pipers. In restaurants, we tend to go for something familiar or close to it. The choice might be between a rabbit stew or a pork chop and chips – and where do most of us end up? In restaurants we’re unmistakably foreigners: we leave the cutlery on the plate after the first course, we order individually rather than share, and we’re more Sinatra than Spanish in spirit – doing things “our way”. And who do we eat with? Sometimes locals, but more often people who speak our own language and share our culture. That’s not isolationism – it’s just so much more comfortable.

There’s more. Just as most of us don’t follow Spanish news, we also miss the rhythms of Spanish life. We don’t really know when Spaniards take their holidays. Constitution Day, El Pilar, All Saints – they feel a bit remote. When Easter arrives, we don’t think of torrijas – we think of chocolate eggs. Even when the holidays do coincide, that Sinatra streak, “our way”, comes out all over again. Where can we get turkey and sprouts for Christmas? It’s not indifference; it’s more that our emotional calendars were printed long before we moved here.

My point, even with my bumbling style, should, by now, be clear: most of us are living in Spain but hardly touching it. And maybe that’s alright. We didn’t necessarily come here to be Spanish – after all, most of our dealings with Spaniards through history have involved naval conflict and being on opposite sides. But it may explain why we’re not all fluent in Spanish or inclined to get into a fistfight over the correct recipe for paella. Some of us came for the weather, some for the more relaxed lifestyle – in fact any number of perfectly good reasons that don’t require a fundamental change in how we behave.

Obviously, this is a broad generalisation, even for that financially independent couple. Plenty of Britons do dive deeper into Spanish life, especially those who partner up with Spaniards or have school-aged children here. Getting a job in a Spanish-speaking environment would probably do it too. Setting up home with a Spaniard means inheriting a family and being pulled into the tide of local events. On New Year’s Eve you’ll stay home until well after midnight before heading out to find some fun in the streets. Your father-in-law will support Atleti, not Aston Villa. And those children – they’ll draw you in too. They’ll need help with their homework, they’ll expect you to go to the school meetings, and their friends will be Spanish. They’ll listen to Spanish music (alongside international stuff), read Spanish books, flirt in Spanish, and know exactly when San José is coming round.