– by Luke Hoskisson

‘What do you study?’

‘Linguistics’

‘Oh cool, how many languages do you know?’

‘Erm… I know a lot about English. Oh. And I know the International Phonetic Alphabet!’

Well no more! I’m here. Estoy en España. To learn Spanish. To become bilingual.

But it’s not that easy.

It’s my first day of class. I turn to the person next to me and introduce myself:

‘Hola, me llamo Luke. ¿Qué tal?’

‘You are Erasmus? You are from England? Hello!’

It’s not even my name that gives it away. I could easily be called Enrique Jose Fernandez and they’d still ask me if I live near Buckingham Palace. It’s my pronunciation. I am trying, but I had arrived 2 weeks before and had never studied Spanish before.

Podemos hablar Español? Quiero aprendar Español. I say, in poorly articulated protest.

‘But we want to speak better English.’

‘We’.

Used surprisingly correct as that one girl sat next to me has now transformed into a mixed group of students the size of Benidorm.

Their unanimous gaze is unwavering as they discuss with one another, as though trying to diagnose a rare and animated growth right between the weird and foreign eyes of their new class armadillo.

Looks like I’m speaking English then.