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Spanish Language Immersion
I’ve been struggling for a few years to learn Spanish. It’s difficult, even when I’m immersed! I wrote about that difficulty just a few months into our assignment in Mexico.
A few months later, I remained frustrated with myself while trying to learn Spanish. I still wasn’t fluent (I’d only been studying 6 months).
Then, I tackled the reasons I was sharing my personal difficulties with learning a second language. It has been a goal of mine to actually be bilingual. Since it has been taking my a lot longer to learn that I’d hoped, I wanted people to understand the courage it takes to speak your new language with native speakers.
Finally, I took a break from learning while we made our first trip home and it did me a lot of good!
While I haven’t written any recent Spanish learning updates lately, the struggle to learn it continues. This lovely quote came on a meme:
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” – Flora Lewis
It’s true! I still have to translate from English to Spanish and back again when I’m having a conversation. However, it isn’t always a straight translation, though it does sometimes work out nicely.