Learning Spanish has always been dear to my heart. While I know I should be studying Finnish if I want to get a job there, I have found that I am burning out because it is so difficult. I switched to Spanish so that I could get a break and actually make some headway on Duolingo.
I studied for two years in high school, and as it turns out, Spanish hasn’t changed that much. Therefore, I am making it quickly through the ranks with a 96% average. My only problem is that I need for people to speak slower, and that isn’t always possible. I have an auditory processing disorder where voices sound like garbled noise and it takes me some time to figure out what was actually said. This is not exclusive to Spanish, it’s just much harder because words are strung together at a much faster rate.
I am finding that reading in Spanish is more my speed. I can take my time and really figure out context. I can also speak Spanish, but it gets problematic when I can’t understand their replies. Like I said, Spanish is so much faster, especially for someone who grew up in the South. I don’t even speak English with any speed. The urgency of Spanish seems unparalleled.
I’m also frustrated that it’s Spanish from Spain and not Mexico, so things sound a bit different to my Tex-Mex ear. My favorite phrase has always been “habla despacio, por favor” (speak slower, please), and I’m thankful that Duolingo actually has a button for that. It makes me wish that people had a button, too.
Boop!
It’s also frustrating that it’s not as easy as it was in high school because Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area in my brain are set for life. Language acquisition comes from both of those places, and their malleability is on the downslope. I never got to full fluency, but I was at least able to carry on full conversations while on mission trips and vacations in Mexico.
That’s my goal- I could be fluent if I lived there and didn’t have a choice. Because I do, I nope out to English when it gets “too hard.” I am such a perfectionist that it gets “too hard” easily, because I have rejection sensitivity dysphoria even with software.
I have learned to regroup and go back later. I’m determined to succeed, and have a 70 day streak going. I should get some books or access to Rosetta Stone through the library, but I’m not quite ready to take the plunge. I just know that of all the languages I could speak in the US, English and Spanish are the most useful.
I remember when I got to Maryland, I went up to a janitor in the mall and realized pretty quickly he didn’t speak English. So, I flipped into Spanish to get directions to the bathroom and he looked like a spaceship had landed and little burritos walked out. I could understand- I don’t imagine that gringos walk up to him and speak Spanish all that often.
Especially since white people are known for telling brown people to “speak American.” That’s not a thing. We speak English. I mention this because I saw a video the other day of a couple walking up to a train conductor in London, of all places. They asked him if he spoke American. When he said he spoke English, they walked away until their 10-year-old said “I can still understand him.”
If I had one wish, it would be to speak every language in the world. I would love to be able to understand anything and everything regardless of country. I think that’s why I’ve flipped around so much on Duolingo. Spanish is my home base, but I’ve dabbled in Arabic, Russian, Finnish, and Swedish. Of all those languages, I enjoyed Finnish the most. I got to where I could write my own blog titles and have Medium’s voice AI read them back to me. Hearing myself in Finnish was quite a trip.
Hearing myself in Spanish isn’t as exciting, only because I’m used to it…. and in fact, because I grew up in Texas, Spanish doesn’t even sound foreign. The only time I’ve had trouble was with dialects in the kitchen. Again, mine is Mexican. The cooks in my Silver Spring pub used a Salvadoran dialect. It’s one of those things that is mostly the same right up until it’s not.
Hilarity ensued.
Luckily, I’ve blocked all of it out.
Stories That Are All True 