la confianza

One thing you hear about in terms of making your way in a foreign language is having the confidence to actually speak.  Like, school Spanish is one thing but being confident enough to use it can be a challenge.  I’ve realized I don’t have that problem.  Maybe because I can get by in French-speaking cities, and because I spent a bit of time boning up on my Spanish before getting here, it seems I do have enough confidence to launch into Spanish sentences with people.  The problem is I don’t speak Spanish anywhere near as well as I feel like I do, so I often confidently make pronouncements that are wrong and/or make no sense.  For example, I think this afternoon I breezily asked my waiter how much he owed me for the coffee.  Or maybe how much he owed the coffee?  I’m still not sure, even having thought about it.  Oh boy, time to start lessons.