1.When you're so confident at first, and throw Spanish palabras into conversation, only to discover you know five palabras total.
2.When you watch old episodes of Yo Soy Betty, la Fea and understand absolutely nothing.
3.When indirect object pronouns get involved, and they're everywhere.
4.When preterite and imperfect tenses sound so simple in theory, but two minutes of silence pass before you figure out which to use. And you use the wrong one.
5.When your voice uncontrollably cracks an octave each time you speak.
6.When you discover there are numbers beyond diez. And sometimes you have to use them.
7.When you deliberate over the gendered tenses and use the wrong one. Literally always.
8.Not being able to roll your R's.
9.Or pronounce the diphthongs. (Or remember exactly what a diphthong is.)
10.The subjunctive. WTF?
11.When you decide to go abroad to improve your Spanish and realize after you arrive that you sound just like every frat guy in Cancun ever.
12.When native Spanish speakers respond to your preguntas in their flawless English.
13.When you start using gestures to communicate. Because who needs words?
14.When you mention you're learning Spanish and all of a sudden someone wants you to SPEAK.
15.Why doesn't anyone just want to talk about where the bathrooms and libraries are?
16.When you realize the speed of a natural conversation ain't happenin' for you anytime soon.
17.When faced with words you just can't pronounce, like naranja, you eliminate them from your life. Apples and bananas will do just fine.
18.When you broach a group conversation with "Yeah! I speak Spanish!" but retreat in terror after the initial hola.
19.When you express how excitada you are about something and discover it does not mean "excited" in the work-appropriate sense.
20.Or when you mention you're embarazada after a gaffe and receive a bunch of awkward congratulations.
21.When you expect to sound like this.
22.Or seem like this.
23.But really you're more like this.
24.When you feel for the person who made this sign.
25.When you decide that perhaps Mayor Bloomberg did a fine job speaking Spanish after all.
26.When you add "a" or "o" to the end of an English word as a hopeful alternative to vocabulary you don't know.
27.And finally, when you realize you will never speak perfectly, but still love the Spanish language and the patient listeners who help you practice.
