Me-o like-o el cheese-o...Spanglish

THE LANGUAGE CURVE>>> if you don't use it, you lose it!

Not too long ago I finished up a Christmas card for my father and his family. I cannot believe I have another sibling...few-month old half-sister Nicole. It's kind of surreal because she's young enough to be my lil' niece! Back to the card - I wrote some of it in English and then proceeded to write (er, attempt to write) a few lines in Spanish, formerly my third language after Mandarin...when I realized how RUSTY it'd gotten. I swear you could hear the creaking - the result of my brain thinking and churning for words. My best friend Jessie and I used to study Spanish in high school - whenever we didn't know a word, we'd just attach an "O" to the end. Instant Spanglish. A few summers ago I felt incredibly frustrated trying to tell Brandon (my now 5...or is it 6-year old half-brother) that "no voy a jugar contigo si jueges como asi"...meaning, I won't play with you if you cheat like that.
CONCLUSION: They say you forget the most about a language within the first two years. After that the memory loss seems to come to a much slower declining plateau. I think I have defied this theory.