A Journey to Learning Spanish
Imagine two little brown girls babbling to each other in gibberish.
I was five years old when I told my little sister we could talk to each other in Spanish. Imagine two little brown girls babbling to each other in gibberish, and ending each word with an “-a” or “-o” sound. We were convinced we were communicating in Spanish. Never mind, the fact that nobody in our house spoke Spanish.
Speaking Spanish was something I heard my mother reference. “The lady at the store was speaking Spanish.” “The neighbor was saying something to me in Spanish.” Shortly after this, any language that was not English must have been some version of Spanish to me. I was enamored with the idea of this language.
Learning Spanish became an opportunity for me to become part of an exclusive group of people who could communicate and understand one another.
I begged my mom to let me take Spanish lessons. She took me to the library, and I got to pick out Spanish cassettes and books on tape. As she drove me to school and around town, I would listen closely to each syllable of the tape. Sometimes, I would ask her to replay whatever tape I had just listened to because I wanted to learn more and remember what I had heard. This was the start of my desire to learn Spanish; I was six years old.
I continued my independent study of Spanish, although at an inconsistent pace. By the sixth grade, my Spanish skills were basic. But I was happy to be able to understand the few words and phrases that I could considering that I had no one to practice with. By ninth grade, I was elated to have Spanish on my schedule. It was one of my favorite classes because I liked the way the letters rolled off my tongue with my pronunciation of each word. I also loved being able to practice what I was learning with two of my friends who were fluent. I felt like I was finally becoming a part of that exclusive group of Spanish speakers. It was like I had deciphered a large part of the code and was that much closer to being able to travel anywhere in the world, and be able to have a conversation in a language other than English.
We started to learn about the pretirite tense. I was distraught. The language I was absorbing was no longer so easy for me to retain. Google translate became my bff on homework assignments. I did what I could do, and left the rest in the hands of the great algorithm. This did me no justice. For some reason, maybe mostly the anxiety that came with junior year of high school, made it super difficult for me to understand when my friends were explaining the nuances of the language to me. After a lot of struggle, I finished the year with an “A”. I decided to take a break for my senior year, and planned to resume my Spanish courses when I went to college the following year.
That did not happen. All the Spanish classes were filled within minutes of me gaining ability to register for classes. I signed up to study German instead.
I decided to get back into my Spanish lessons via the Duolingo app. I’m now on the app at least twice a week studying Spanish, amidst other languages of interest. I feel like I’m doing something when I move up on the leader board, or when I can hold a simulated conversation in the club room portion of the app. I’m even starting to get into the podcasts. I must admit, while I am a good reader of Spanish, my conversational Spanish is still between Beginner and Intermediate after all these years of inconsistent studying.
Despite the setbacks, and the anxiety, and the lack of interpersonal practice I am still growing in my journey to learning (and mastering) Spanish.
