¿Tú Hablas Español?

Today, I am going to let you all in on the progress of one of the skills I have been developing for myself. For many years now, I have been learning the Spanish language. Technically, I had my first Spanish class in the 9th grade. Since I was introduced to the language I have been fascinated by it. If I'm analyzing my life timeline correctly, then I have been sporadically learning Spanish for about 8 years.

That's a long time. You'd think I should be fluent by now. However, I haven't been the most consistent in my learning throughout those 8 years. That's why I had to throw in the word 'sporadically' in that last sentence of the first paragraph.

Although I haven't been the most consistent, I can't deny the tremendous amount of work I have been putting towards developing this skill for myself throughout these past couple of years. I am now at the point of practicing Spanish 5 days out of the week with a personal tutor.

That is humungous growth! If I were to speak in Spanish to the person I was 8 years ago, he would probably think that I am fluent in the language. Spoiler alert: I'm not quite there yet. I can really feel myself almost to point of being able to have full and expressive conversations with Spanish speakers. Granted, I have held conversations with Spanish speakers already, but they are extremely rocky on my end.

If it wasn't for a lot of people having patience with me, I would've probably given up on the language by now. I know exactly what I need to work on, fundamentally, but the main mental issue that I have when engaging in conversation is confidence.

That is ironic for me to say, considering that I just stated that the younger version of myself would believe that I am fluent. However, I currently feel like I need to put myself out there more if I want to break through the mental walls that hold me back when an opportunity to speak arises.

Opportunities Arise

Now, I must applaud myself for some recent interactions I've had in Spanish. The other day at work, I had to call a customer and give them an update on their order. On the phone she asked if I could speak Spanish and I immediately jumped on that opportunity to practice. I was able to give her the update and our conversation led to an agreed upon conclusion. I was extremely proud of myself for having a successful conversation with a Spanish speaker.

While Uber driving one day, I picked up a man that spoke very little English. On this particular day I was eager to practice my Spanish because my tutor had told me that I needed more confidence and I just need to speak when I get the chance. So during this ride I asked the man, "¿Tú hablas español?" and that kicked off a conversation. I learned that he's from Venezuela and that he was learning English just like how I've been learning Spanish. Both of us were really patient with each other and talked for about 15 minutes as I drove him to his destination. I was especially surprised that I was able to drive and think about translating Spanish to English and back to Spanish all at the same time! However, I want to get to the point when I am not processing Spanish that way in my brain. I want to be able to speak naturally in Spanish, like I do in English.

Learning a second language has been utterly humbling. Some days I feel like I am a Spanish King and others I feel like a newborn first learning to speak. This entire journey is similar to my workout progress. As long as I remain patient with myself, I will eventually be where I want to be.

As of right now, I believe my reading, listening, and comprehension are my strongest areas. I am following along to music, movies, and random conversations much better than what I used to do in the past. I also believe that my vocabulary is very strong because of how many classes of Spanish I have taken and all of the Duolingo I've done.

What I need to work on, though, is my writing and speaking. In my opinion, those two go hand in hand. If you know how to write, then you should know how to speak. I have began writing more in Spanish and the more I write the more I learn. My tutor will usually read over what I wrote and provide feedback.

Being able to form sentences and get my message across is starting to become more of my focus. I need to learn this language now more than ever and I believe that 2023 is the year that I will finally become fluent.

I will keep you all updated on my progress and maybe even write an entire blog post in Spanish. That might be fun...Anyway, I wish I could have provided some useful information for you all to take away from this post and apply it to your life. I suppose this post was more about me and what I am currently doing. Isn't that what a blog is supposed to be? I don't know.

I do hope that you readers found some value in this post, though. One of my missions is to uplift my readers through my writing as well as build a community. If you ever want to reach out to me there are plenty of avenues you could take. I am always happy to talk more about whatever common interest we both might have. So, don't be afraid to reach out.

Until the next post.

Jefferson K. Coe