An Open Letter to the Spanish Language

Dear Spanish,

I signed up to learn the ways of your oh-so-exotic syntax back in first semester, with starry-eyed optimism. Learning a new language was like a whole new world of wonders. Oh, how I wish I had known then what I now know about you.

Beginner's Spanish was next to divine in it's simplicity. I learned the ecsquisite basics of your beautiful grammar and seemingly logical and practical verbs, nouns and adjectives. You made me feel smart in my mastery of what I soon concluded was "an easy language to learn".

Let us fast-forward to today, April 16th, 2007. Tomorrow, I will write my final exam, testing me of my knowledge of you at the intermediate level. How our relationship has changed. As you've turned up the heat, so to speak, in our partnership, I've grown steadily to loathe you. Spanish, I simply don't know how you expect me to memorize ALL of your numerous, nit-picky verb tenses, and more repulsive, your verb "moods". I've come to detest double, nay triple checking all of my translations to make sure all of my words "match" - how am I supposed to remember if things like my hands, or hair, or apples, or chairs, or the sky, are masculine or feminine??!?! (just for the record, I consider my hair to be pretty feminine, but you, Spanish, apparently think "mi pelo" is quite manly).

And so, though I am sorry to say it, this, Spanish, is the end for you and I. I've had it. I'm sick of your dang superlatives, your imperfect tense, your infinitives and your stupid subjunctive mood. I'm tired of your informal "tu" commands and your direct object pronouns. I'm fed up, Spanish, with how you insist that I roll the "r" when there are two of them in a word. Maybe I don't want to roll my "r's", have you ever thought of that? What about MY feelings, have you ever considered that perhaps, just MAYBE, I want my accents NOT to point up and to the right???!?! NO!!! Spanish, we are THROUGH. Stop calling, don't email, don't even try to send me smoke signals. It's over.

Hoping never to see you again,
Tiffany.