Measures of Language Success

I have made a short list to help you understand how I measure my progress in spoken language acquisition.  The list is ordered from easy to difficult.

• The American tourist mistaken for an Ecuadorian
• That local who realizes youre from the States and starts talking to you in horrible broken English.
• A one on one conversation (mostly silly questions with textbook answers)
• Talking to a group of two (in a triangle formation, nothing bus-like)
• A phone conversation with a friend from a non-echoey room
• The ability to sing along with (rehearsed) popular songs
• Talking to a group of four (with only moderate jokes being told)
• A phone conversation with an unexpected telemarketer
• Lunch with a group of four at a busy restaurant with a horribly loud television in the background
• Talking to a group of six (none of them using “hip” lingo)
• A multi-person teleconference from a payphone in a busy street
• Talking to a group of greater than 10 (maybe in a place with padded walls)
• The ability to sing along with unrehearsed (but catchy) communist tunes
• Talking to a group of six who have been drinking Scotch Whiskey for the last 6 hours
• The speeding cabbie who is driving in two lanes with all four windows down, the dashboard rattling like gunfire and three springs poking you from the seat.
• An introduction that includes my name (which is pronounced something like “baiyn” in Spanish).

I guess I’m somewhere in between the unexpected telemarketer and the catchy communist tunes.  I will be a true Spanish speaker if I can ever get that last one right!