Spanglish

Clever t-shirt (translation: that moment when you start to think in two languages at the same time)

I have serious struggles when I have to speak in 100% English. Luckily, almost anytime I'm speaking English in Peru, I'm talking to other volunteers. This means Spanglish is a totally normal means of communication, and it makes life so much easier! Whichever language's version of the word pops into your head first, that's the one you say - no filter necessary. When I'm talking to friends or family back home, it's not so easy; there's always a good number of two-second-extra long pauses while I try to figure out what word I'm looking for in English. Particularly when talking about work, there are Peace Corps-related words that I use in Spanish all the time, but that I never used in my day-to-day English life so I have to rummage deep in the back of my native vocabulary to find them.