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¿Oye como va?
Jan. 8th, 2015 08:55 am..mi ritmo! Bueno pa' gozar, Mulata.
I got reminded today about an interesting part of my life that I sometimes struggle with.
A coworker, whom I believe served a mission in a Latin American country but is otherwise non-natively Spanish speaking, and I had a short conversation in the kitchen in Spanish. I've been making greater efforts to throw it out there since I am otherwise surrounded by native speakers, and I knew this friend spoke it well enough to at least exchange pleasantries. We both admitted after a short while that we'd reached the edges of our conversational ability and talked about our backgrounds.
I always find it interesting talking about that. In my case, I was born to a family whom both my parents are native Spanish speakers, and yet I don't speak Spanish very well. Neither of them made much effort to teach my sister or I, and we even spoke to our grandparents in English. However, because my parents often spoke it to each other, and to their parents, I learned to understand the vocabulary.
The grand irony of aspects of this is that my Dad was a teacher, and working on his masters thesis for teaching Spanish while an exchange student in Guadalajara, Mexico. He had a knack for linguistics, and was able to break down the phonetic learning process for pronunciation and the like. It is part of why I learned to speak and read very early. I still remember lessons on the phonetic blocks when I was maybe 3ish. I'm told that he had the ability to take someone with a very non-native accent and have them speaking with an almost native Spanish accent.
And yet....
All of this for me had the added bonus of making traditional Spanish classes in school boring as hell. My vocabulary was significantly more advanced as a result of being exposed to the language, but my grammar was atrocious. It made things difficult from a learning perspective, and due to other upbringing issues I was never overly inclined to ask my parents for help.
I muddled my way through grade-school Spanish classes without much notice of anybody. I learned a little, but never managed any significant degree of fluency. Sometime later, in efforts to make college easier, I opted to throw in a Spanish class for my elective credits, and suddenly, all of that past caught up with me. :-)
On the first day of class, I remember walking in and sitting down. It was an entry level class, though the professor spoke almost entirely in Spanish. I believe it was her goal to get us acclimated to hearing the language, and she prompted the class along as needed for those who were truly beginners. Maybe it was that I didn't look in the slightest bit confused or concerned. I remember others around me answering questions in Spanish, and I did as well. I don't remember standing out in any way. However, as the first class ended, she specifically pointed at me and told me to stay after... Hmmm! So I did, and she then proceeded to talk to me in Spanish, and nearly berate me for being in her class. She told me that I didn't belong there, and that I should be taking the Spanish for Spanish-speakers class. I was very amused and left both feeling like I had had some long-kept secret revealed, and also really encouraged that somebody actually took the time to see the signs and notice and have useful suggestions.
I did stop going to that class, but I never made it to a more appropriate one. Then again, I never finished the degree either, but that is a whole other post for a whole other time. Ultimately, the point is, being of Spanish descent (Mexican, really) and not speaking Spanish is interesting. I am very definitely not alone in that. I stumbled on a documentary not too long ago on Netflix that talked about the Tejano music out of the Rio Grande valley and there was a young group that talked about growing up second-generation Latino to include a very strong accent, but not being able to speak Spanish and how they had to learn the songs phonetically when they decided to start playing them, and that is how their Spanish education began.
It's an interesting thing.
Some years after I was grown I seem to remember asking my parents why they never taught me or particularly encouraged me to speak Spanish, and I was told that they didn't want me to live a stigmatized life. Back in their time, integration was different. They were ostracized and discriminated against because they spoke Spanish first. Our parents didn't want us to endure that. And that is sad. Both for them and their experiences, and for the fact that by the time we came around, things were already changing. Granted, there still is discrimination and social issues with speaking other languages, particularly as a first. Too many calls from so many ignorant people that we in this country should only speak English. Not only ignorance of our founding as a country, but the ignorance and fear that perpetuates our intellectual ignorance and makes us natively inferior to people from other countries where it is normal and expected that they AT LEAST know two languages and often several more.
It certainly makes me realize that at my age, I've continued to do myself a disservice by not bridging that gap. And it encourages me to throw a little more out there when I get the chance. I may stumble and fall, but who doesn't?
I got reminded today about an interesting part of my life that I sometimes struggle with.
A coworker, whom I believe served a mission in a Latin American country but is otherwise non-natively Spanish speaking, and I had a short conversation in the kitchen in Spanish. I've been making greater efforts to throw it out there since I am otherwise surrounded by native speakers, and I knew this friend spoke it well enough to at least exchange pleasantries. We both admitted after a short while that we'd reached the edges of our conversational ability and talked about our backgrounds.
I always find it interesting talking about that. In my case, I was born to a family whom both my parents are native Spanish speakers, and yet I don't speak Spanish very well. Neither of them made much effort to teach my sister or I, and we even spoke to our grandparents in English. However, because my parents often spoke it to each other, and to their parents, I learned to understand the vocabulary.
The grand irony of aspects of this is that my Dad was a teacher, and working on his masters thesis for teaching Spanish while an exchange student in Guadalajara, Mexico. He had a knack for linguistics, and was able to break down the phonetic learning process for pronunciation and the like. It is part of why I learned to speak and read very early. I still remember lessons on the phonetic blocks when I was maybe 3ish. I'm told that he had the ability to take someone with a very non-native accent and have them speaking with an almost native Spanish accent.
And yet....
All of this for me had the added bonus of making traditional Spanish classes in school boring as hell. My vocabulary was significantly more advanced as a result of being exposed to the language, but my grammar was atrocious. It made things difficult from a learning perspective, and due to other upbringing issues I was never overly inclined to ask my parents for help.
I muddled my way through grade-school Spanish classes without much notice of anybody. I learned a little, but never managed any significant degree of fluency. Sometime later, in efforts to make college easier, I opted to throw in a Spanish class for my elective credits, and suddenly, all of that past caught up with me. :-)
On the first day of class, I remember walking in and sitting down. It was an entry level class, though the professor spoke almost entirely in Spanish. I believe it was her goal to get us acclimated to hearing the language, and she prompted the class along as needed for those who were truly beginners. Maybe it was that I didn't look in the slightest bit confused or concerned. I remember others around me answering questions in Spanish, and I did as well. I don't remember standing out in any way. However, as the first class ended, she specifically pointed at me and told me to stay after... Hmmm! So I did, and she then proceeded to talk to me in Spanish, and nearly berate me for being in her class. She told me that I didn't belong there, and that I should be taking the Spanish for Spanish-speakers class. I was very amused and left both feeling like I had had some long-kept secret revealed, and also really encouraged that somebody actually took the time to see the signs and notice and have useful suggestions.
I did stop going to that class, but I never made it to a more appropriate one. Then again, I never finished the degree either, but that is a whole other post for a whole other time. Ultimately, the point is, being of Spanish descent (Mexican, really) and not speaking Spanish is interesting. I am very definitely not alone in that. I stumbled on a documentary not too long ago on Netflix that talked about the Tejano music out of the Rio Grande valley and there was a young group that talked about growing up second-generation Latino to include a very strong accent, but not being able to speak Spanish and how they had to learn the songs phonetically when they decided to start playing them, and that is how their Spanish education began.
It's an interesting thing.
Some years after I was grown I seem to remember asking my parents why they never taught me or particularly encouraged me to speak Spanish, and I was told that they didn't want me to live a stigmatized life. Back in their time, integration was different. They were ostracized and discriminated against because they spoke Spanish first. Our parents didn't want us to endure that. And that is sad. Both for them and their experiences, and for the fact that by the time we came around, things were already changing. Granted, there still is discrimination and social issues with speaking other languages, particularly as a first. Too many calls from so many ignorant people that we in this country should only speak English. Not only ignorance of our founding as a country, but the ignorance and fear that perpetuates our intellectual ignorance and makes us natively inferior to people from other countries where it is normal and expected that they AT LEAST know two languages and often several more.
It certainly makes me realize that at my age, I've continued to do myself a disservice by not bridging that gap. And it encourages me to throw a little more out there when I get the chance. I may stumble and fall, but who doesn't?
