The British are coming!

During orientation in Sevilla, there was one session in which a Spanish woman told us to “be careful with your American words.” The Spanish prefer their English learning to be done in the Royal British tradition, which I say is complete bollocks. Today at school I realized more than ever the difference between American and British English.

My sixth grade English classes were working on school subjects and school utensils. Lola, the teacher, encouraged the children to shout out vocabulary they already knew to get them started. For school subjects, the children said: “English! History! Maths!” I thought Lola would correct them, but she wrote that plural up on that board like it was completely normal. I wondered if I should say something, and then I saw that their book also had it written as a plural. I held my tongue. I guess “mathematics” is plural, so why not the shortened form? Well, because it sounds ridiculous.

Then we moved on to utensils. Again: “Pen! Book! Pencil! Book! Rubber!” That one made me cringe. Sure, these kids probably won’t travel to the United States any time soon and ask for an eraser in the stores, but if they did they would get some VERY weird looks.

So we know vocabulary is different. Not a huge deal. But then at the break time, I was in the teacher’s lounge talking to a woman named Inma who has a very strong British accent. Her English is so good I was lured into thinking she actually was British until later, when she launched into a rapid Spanish conversation with coworkers. She asked me about my education and I told her I “majored in English.” She looked completely lost. I explained that a major is like a concentration, specialization, main area of study, whatever. She nodded, but still looked very concerned.

“I just don’t understand,” she said, “why you would study English. Where is the job in that?” She looked extremely flustered.
“Well, for instance, I’m, you know, teaching English. This year.” I hoped that would make some sense to her, but it didn’t.
“But afterward?”
“My concentration was in Creative Writing…”
She finally looked relieved. “Ah, so you’ll be a journalist or something like that.”
“…Yes. Yes. I want to be a journalist.” I left it at that.

I forget sometimes how uncommon the American system of liberal arts universities is. I felt grateful, though, that we are not required to decide what we want to do with the rest of our lives when we are only 12 or 14 or even 16. Hurrah for the American allegiance to a lifetime of being noncommittal! If I’d had to choose a career when I was in elementary school, perhaps I would have chosen to be a maths teacher. And, in other countries, that’s not something you can just rubber out.