Thursday, June 23, 2011

Learning Spanish and Why It Haunts Me

When I first arrived in Honduras, I didn't know much Spanish. My vocabulary consisted of simple words: hola, adios, gracias. I made a promise to myself that I would learn as much as possible, but for me, that required studying.

My first couple of days, I was overwhelmed. Every sign was in Spanish. Everyone spoke Spanish. I was completely lost, relying strictly direct translation to English. From February to April, I didn't try to learn much. But I found my Spanish book and started to religiously study it daily. I did the grammar exercises, learning new vocabulary words and began to understand how to read and write in basic Spanish.

The problem was -- and still continues to be -- that I have a super big fear of speaking! I know exactly what I want to say, I can understand what people say to me (if they speak slowly, of course) but I can't seem to jump the wall and produce the words from my mouth.

I'm not sure exactly what my problem is but I think it stems from two things:
1. Some people pulled a joke on me when I was first learning that made my confidence drop; and
2. I'm a teacher so I think WAY too much.

I want to overcome my fear but it takes a lot of guts for me to speak. I don't want people to laugh or make comments, I don't want to have the wrong accent or forget to roll my R's. I don't want to make a mistake. But learning only comes from mistakes.

If I can give advice to my students to take risks when they learn English, why can't I take my own advice?

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