LANGUAGE
How Spanish Became a Part of Me
A tale of language learning and unexpected discoveries
My relationship with Spanish started in a rather uninteresting way. I was fifteen, and on a hot summer day I decided I wanted to learn another foreign language (I already spoke two). And this time I was going to do it on my own.
I looked at my options: I thought German would be useful but too difficult to learn on my own, Italian was not that widely spoken, and Chinese or Arabic seemed far too complex.
Spanish appeared to be a great choice. Everyone said it was an easy language to learn and a relative already had books on Spanish as a foreign language that I could borrow, so I chose Spanish. My choice was guided by luck and naivety, so it’s safe to say that I didn’t know much about Spanish at the time. For me, it wasn’t about the language of Cervantes; I just figured it would be a useful language because it was spoken in more than one country.
So I started learning. I learnt by using old used books, Duolingo (which was just starting) and googling words and verb tables. It was more of a personal goal than a goal related to Spanish itself; it was the first time I was self-teaching and I wanted it to pay off.
But time passed, as it always does, and I had more pressing matters to attend to, such as exams at the end of the school year and later university classes. I left Spanish behind, thinking that one day I would return to it.
And I did; in the first year of graduate school, I started using Duolingo consistently to learn Spanish. I did one lesson -or more- a day. This time my motivation was related to my need to have a personal project, something other than my studies or my day-to-day activities. Over time, Spanish became my way to declutter, the thing I would turn to when I was having a rough day or when I needed to relax. Learning Spanish gave me a very different sense of purpose, that of having a very personal project to see through.
Spanish was to me what gardening is to others: realising that I could formulate phrases without breaking a sweat and understanding when people spoke -slowly- was like watching a seed grow into a small plant and then a tree.
My first major breakthrough came in the second semester of that same year. My curriculum was obliging me to take a language learning class in the second semester, and in a level above beginners. That meant I had to already know more than the basics on the language, in order to be able to keep up with the class. I chose Spanish and I entered a B1 CEFR level class.
I, along with a friend, were the only ones not having taken a Spanish class before. And even though sometimes I had to fill in gaps in grammar in order to keep up, this class was the best moment of my week because it opened my eyes to something new: the world of the Spanish-speaking countries.
Over the course of the semester, I learnt about everything from how the Spanish use communal fridges to avoid wasting food, to how some indigenous leaders are fighting to preserve the Amazon forest. I learnt how in some Latin American regions indigenous people who don’t speak Spanish are often put on trial without an interpreter to explain what the trial is about, and how collective memory and justice is implemented in the Spanish-speaking world.
I became obsessed with Spanish. I bought books in Spanish, watched Spanish language series, listened to podcasts and music in Spanish. There was so much to learn! I even gathered forces and I prepared myself to take the DELE B2 certification exam; I passed with flying colours.
I continued to go to class in my last year of graduate school. I even skipped a level; I went straight to the C1 CEFR class. I read poetry, and classic literature in Spanish. I prepared presentations, made videos, and analysed texts from a literary point of view. I became familiar with cultural differences, accents and historical events of Spanish-speaking countries.
I finished graduate school, but that didn’t mean my Spanish journey was over. I may no longer go to Spanish classes, but I’m studying for a Latin American studies certificate along with my job, I listen to Spanish-speaking podcasts everyday and I watch series in Spanish.
This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a very long journey during which I have met incredible people, ones that found my accent cute and laughed with the way I pronounce “s” (the Greek way, which is almost identical to Madrid Spanish), I got to know Mexican Lele dolls and cook chilaquiles, and take a dive in the Cantabrian Sea.
Spanish has finally become a part of me and it feels like home.
