First Spitaliano then Itilish...
Today Anne-Marie and I returned from a week-long vacation in sunny Cancun, Mexico... OLE! When we first arrived in Italy, I was the only member of the family that was fluent in another language (i.e., Spanish—having lived in South America for three years). Italian and Spanish are pretty close (the roots of words, grammar, and pronunciation are substantially similar). I was surprised by how much Italian I could initially understand because of my Spanish.Those early days in Italy were filled with a lot of Spitaliano (i.e., Italian sprinkled with Spanish). It wasn't long before my Spanish disappeared entirely as my mind became completely consumed with Italian. I remember more than a year into our sojourn in Italy calling to Spain because both Rebecca and Craig would be serving voluntary missions for our Church there and I needed to make a few arrangements for them... I could barely construct a sentence in Spanish (how is that possible!).
Last week's vacation was somewhat the opposite. At first I spoke a lot of Itilish (i.e., Spanish sprinkled with Italian). Within days, however, my Spanish returned and this time I didn't loose the Italian. I now find it much easier to go back and forth between the two languages. YEA!
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