My Passion for Spanish and Language
Article Written By: NealWalters
I didn't study Spanish first, but actually Latin in high school. After learning the complexities of Latin, Spanish was a breeze. It was also more fun, because we moved to West Texas were people atually speak the language.andnbsp; My high school Spanish seemed to andquot;stickandquot;, even though I'm always talking to people who have totally forgotten whatever language they learned in school. Perhaps they didn't have a true love for language, or perhaps they just never made opportunities to continue their studies.
During high school, I had two labor-type jobs, so I got to work with several Spanish speakers. I can't repeat many of the andquot;colorful metaphorsandquot; that I learned, but it was a good experience. It actually did help reinforce what I was learning in school.andnbsp; At the end of my junior year in high-school, I went on the Spanish Club's trip to Mexico. Travelling to a Spanish-speaking country is obviously a great way to boost your skills. I created an audio-scrapbook for the trip, and got 3 hours of transferrable college credit from a junior college. When I went to college, I took CLEP tests - advanced placement tests for Spanish. They actually awarded me 14 college credits from my test results. Wow - that saved me one entire semester in college. In college, I didn't major in Spanish, but almost got a minor. If I remember correctly, I had one class in conversational Spanish, and two classes in Spanish literature. I was also involved with Spanish Clubs and Honor Society on campus. Later, when I was out in the working world, I did self self-study in French, Portugese, and Hebrew. I discovered the Pimsleur system and the government FSI courses (this was still 10 years before the internet!). I went on a couple of trips to Brazil, where I spoke probably butchered my limited Portugese with a lot of Spanish, but I could make myself understood. Finally, in 1995 I got to live and work in a Spanish-speaking destination, San Juan, Puerto Rico. While I could have used English on the job, I tried when possible to use Spanish, and the co-workers were encouraging. I was there about nine months, and often found myself starting to andquot;thinkandquot; in Spanish instead of English. I would have learned even more if I had stayed in someone's home, instead of living by mself.andnbsp; After studying a few more languages, I have learned what works and what doesn't. I decided to create my own Spanish online learning community. We have several native Spanish speakers supporting our forum and creating short lessons.About the Author
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