¿Parlez-vous Español?
How I Became Crazy and Tried to Teach Myself Spanish in 7 Weeks
I tried to go to Haiti. Which would make sense, as I am a minoring in French and studying environmental economics. However, the U.S. government has declared Haiti unsafe to travel to, and my university frowns upon that. The woman in the study abroad office suggested Costa Rica as an alternative. Great!! Except that a prerequisite for the program is at least two years of college-level Spanish coursework.
And so my adventure began. I set up a meeting with the advisor of the resarch-based Costa Rica program, who happened to be my ecology professor at the time. She asked how much Spanish I had taken so far in the university. None. Her eyes widened for a second, and then relaxed as she realized, “But you’ll be fine because of your high school Spanish, right?”
I would be.
If I had taken high school Spanish.
Her doubt and frown dismissed me from the office, but as I walked away I could feel determination growing in my gut.
The next couple of weeks were filled with emails and meetings to see if what I was trying to do was possible. My situation was unique; I was lucky to have support from friends and family throughout the process. To make a long story shorter, I ended up applying for the program based on a promise that I would take an accelerated summer Spanish course and also take courses during the fall and winter trimesters of the following year to prepare for the trip. I was accepted, on the condition that I get through the first four courses of Spanish offered at my college.
I was excited at being accepted, until I hit another roadblock. Who knew that the accelerated Spanish course I had planned on taking carried a price tag of eight grand. No way, José. I had to come up with a Plan B, and for that I met with the head of the Spanish Department. Plan B was not nearly as reassuring or concrete as Plan A. Plan B was to use a textbook as a professor. Yikes.
Let me be the first to tell you — reading a language textbook is probably the worst way to learn a language. While I’ve supplemented my self-designed curriculum with Spanish-speaking amigos and as many online resources as possible, it’s been a tough ordeal. Language is all about communication, so sitting at my parent’s dining room table flipping through verb charts and rules on indirect object pronouns in isolation is just about the antithesis of idea language learning.
I remember my first year of learning French quite clearly. It was magical. My teacher rarely lectured. Instead, he engaged all of us with games and interactions that made learning French completely natural. For example, he created a fake lottery that we played for months to learn numbers. Whoever won the lottery each day received a delicious biscuit with one catch — you had to realize you won (the winning number was always read aloud, thus the exercise was a listening one).
In comparison, reading a textbook completely sucks. There’s no way around it. I’m learning Spanish in the worst way possible. Thankfully, it’s temporary… I’ll likely be able to get into the appropriate course this fall and practice in a classroom setting before actually jetting off to Costa Rica. But the point of this story is that sometimes you have to be insane and try to learn Spanish in seven weeks. The program advisor gave me a solid no to my study abroad plans. The cost of learning Spanish through my university over the summer was much too high. But my plans to do research in Costa Rica did not die. This is the beginning of an adventure, and sometimes we all stumble before walking confidently along the trail.
So while my relationship with Spanish hasn’t been an easy one — and while it is certainly not at the point of my love for French — I am glad that I’ve taken the risk. Je suis heureux que yo hablo español.
