Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for February 21, 2022

let’s me guess… he did terrible (la pronunciación española)

It’s not as absurd as you’d think. For example, many kids I went to high school with were of French Canadian descent and could speak the language but had a terrible time in high school trying to master written French, verb tenses, and grammar – just like many of us struggled with the rules of English and Latin grammar.

I’m an US military brat, born in Germany, my first language was German. We moved back to the states before kindergarten. I took German my freshman yr of high school, could speak with the teacher and the 4th yrs fluently but failed every test. Frau only passed me because I could speak it. Depending on the situation, having the ability to speak other languages is important, writing them and conjugating a verb is a secondary plus.

I had a psych prof in college who was German, came to the US in his teens, and flunked German in HS because his English was not good enough.

That bad huh

He won’t be forgiving then either, trust me…there were things I still didn’t want to tell my mom when she was in her 90s!

No worse than a North American English-speaking person flunking English. Except, Papi wants his boy to carry on the language for him.