I was nine when our family emigrated from Poland to the U.S. and had to quickly learn a new language. I carried around a little spiral notebook where I jotted down new words I saw/heard.

In South America (where I realized my high school Spanish had been long forgotten), I used a more high-tech method: jotting down new words on my iPhone.

I’m at about 200 words now, which I think puts me in the vocabulary range of a 2-year old. I still don’t feel very confident conversing—I can read easier than I can speak—but these are coming in handy in the Spanish Canary Islands. For anything else, I turn to Google Translate.

My Spanish Vocabulary

I wonder if this qualifies me to be considered trilingual? Or do I have to demonstrate I can string these words together to form proper sentences?