Yo hablo español
Apr 9th, 2007, 04:35 pm
My Spanish skills have improved drastically over the past seven weeks. Before arriving in Argentina, I struggled to speak basic sentences and understand the spoken language. Now, I can say I’m “proficient.” I still lack a large, powerful vocabulary, but that comes with time. And I often have trouble understanding spoken Spanish. However, I’m progressing quickly.
Living with an Argentine host family has done wonders with my Spanish. Besides giving me a firsthand look into Argentine family life, it gives me a great opportunity to practice speaking Spanish with natives. If I lived alone or with Anglophones, my Spanish would still suck. Unfortunately, the costs of living with a host family are ridiculous. I would save so much money by finding my own housing, but the study abroad program requires students to live with Argentine families.
Of course, simply being immersed in Argentine culture has improved my Spanish greatly. There’s no substitute for immersion when learning a language. You can study Spanish for six years in classrooms like I did, but you still won’t be able to communicate effectively with native speakers. So if you want to learn a certain language, visit the place where it’s spoken!
Being bilingual in English and Bengali (well, I understand the latter much better than speaking it) gives me a huge advantage over monolinguals in learning Spanish. I never struggled to learn Spanish in high school, and I knew even back then that my knowledge of two languages definitely helps. I can recognize a wider variety of phonemes than monolinguals, so I think I have decent pronunciation. I cringe when I hear Americans speak Spanish as if it was English, without changing their pronunciation or intonation at all. I don’t know if it’s fair for me to judge them, but I can’t stand to hear Americans speak Spanish so horribly, especially if they had studied it for years. Yeah, I know I don’t speak Spanish even close to perfectly, but I really doubt my grammar and pronunciation is as horrendous as some of the Americans I’ve met here.
I’m thinking that once I can speak Spanish more smoothly, I might be able to use my accent to my advantage. I was told by a lady that worked at a small shop that I talked beautifully. Sure, she was like 45 and plain, but hey, it’s a start. It’s sort of like how in the States we think certain accents are hot.
I hope to be fluent or nearly fluent by the time I leave in December. I think it’s possible. I just need to immerse myself into the culture, meet more native speakers, and isolate myself from Americans. If immersing myself in Argentine culture means growing a mullet, I just may have to do that.
Next language to perfect: Bengali.