Define 'multilingual'

I speak Azerbaijani. Poorly, I speak it poorly, in all honesty. I have some things I say over and over again, like, “My Azerbaijani is really bad,” which, because I say them so frequently come out fluidly and easily, an audible contradiction to their meaning. But I do speak it passably. Speaking passably does not necessarily include the ability to decipher what is being said to me. Part of that is because my vocabulary is weak, part is because the Azerbaijani language includes innumerable suffixes which change words’ meanings in a myriad of ways, and partly because the Azerbaijani being spoken in my direction is often rapid-fire, even if I request the speaker to go more slowly. In short, I kind of stink and people give up on me.

A woman came a-begging in our apartment complex the other evening, and my neighbor (whom I have a really difficult time understanding) told the woman all I understand is “hello” and “goodbye.” Which isn’t necessarily true, but I didn’t bother to correct her. That would just be opening up a can of worms.

In Azerbaijan, people’s initial reaction to me is to speak Russian. I think it’s my coloring which makes them think I’m from Russia, because it’s sure not my facial structure. They’re always kind of shocked when I speak back to them in their own language; sometimes they don’t recognize it because they would never expect me to speak Azeri so they don’t listen for it. I get mixed reactions when I tell them I’m American. Most don’t know what to say….they just kind of say, “Huh.” You can see it. And conversation usually stops. But occasionally I’ll meet an adventurous soul who asks if I live here, if I work here, and how many children I have. One time an older gentleman, upon hearing I’m American, put his hand to his heart and just glowed. That was a good, good day. (this is him)

At work today, I was in the library with my Azerbaijani counterpart, a journalist visiting from Lithuania, the Azerbaijani man who manages the org’s farm, and a Russian woman and her grandson. I speak English and some Azeri. The Lithuanian guy speaks Russian and some English. The Azeri man speaks, well, Azeri and Russian and a tiny bit of English. My counterpart speaks Azeri, Russian and English. And the woman speaks Russian and Azeri. So the Azeri man and the woman were having an animated conversation which kept flipping back and forth between Russian and Azeri. Sometimes I could understand pieces, sometimes the Lithuanian guy could understand pieces…we were throwing each other glances to see how much the other was picking up. In the end, the woman was offered a job cooking in the org’s café and the boy was left in the library with us to learn how to use computers, though he ended up having a long, involved conversation in Russian with the guy from Lithuania and my counterpart.

Over the years I have studied German, Dutch, Spanish, French and now Azerbaijani. My weakness has always been vocabulary retention. I knew that coming into the Peace Corps and warned them repeatedly on self-assessment surveys that it would be my weakness. That hasn’t stopped them from telling me each and every testing cycle that my vocabulary is weak, but at least it doesn’t bother me anymore. Sometimes I’ll be chatting right along in Azeri and German will pop up. Or Spanish. All I can do is laugh.

I mean heck, if I can’t get rid of the lyrics to “Puppy Love,” what hope have I?