Language difficulties

When I met el Latino Love God, I couldn't speak a word of Spanish. It took me a few weeks to be able to say his last name properly, and several months to get out a decent 'hola'. Somehow it seems as though as one gets older, the ability to learn another language gets harder...or maybe it's just me...

Anyway, we used to go to Spain and I would receive full immersion into the language, as his family sat around talking extremely quickly and on top of each other and for the first few times we went, I could hardly make out even a word.

Then, as I started to get a bit more exposure to his beautiful language, I noticed that I seemed to be coming up quite a lot in conversation. Beth here... Beth there. Even his Mum would talk about me. An interesting mix of ego stroking/I'm the centre of everyone's universe and paranoia/what they hell are they saying about me? interspersed my thoughts...

Then one day, I asked my beloved what they were talking about, as I seemed to be featuring quite a lot that day. He mentioned something about a friend of his mum's and something that had happened to her or something. The point being, it had nothing whatsoever to do with me.

Curious, I said, 'but why then am I in the conversation?'. He looked back equally curious... 'what do you mean? We're not talking about you?'.

'But', I said, 'my name seems to be coming up a lot'.

A flash of recognition mixed with a sparkle came to his face. 'Beth... we're not talking about you, mi amor. Beth (vez) means time!'.

'Oh', I said. 'That's almost as funny as the time I said to your mum on a warm summer day as we were out walking, not 'Isn't it hot?', but 'I am so horny!'. Mmmmm she said looking at her son. That's just a little bit too much information!

So, here's to language barriers and overcoming them with humour and with love.