To Be or Not to Be

So you are a busy-responsibility-ridden-adult-Spanish-language-learner. Or are you? Let’s see. You would really, truly like to commit to your language studies, but, well, you know... there’s work, and family and the cricket game and the football finals and the Sunday barbeques. How could you realistically take some time off to go beyond your two-hour class at the local community college? Yes, it may be enriching to seat around and learn interesting fact about Spanish, both as a language and a culture and see a travel video in YouTube about someone’s vacation to Peru, but...but...but what?

 

The answer to you dilemma is simple: either you are a Spanish student or you are not.

 If you are a Spanish student, you’ll watch football in Spanish;  you’ll demand respect for your learning just as painter demands that no one in the family touches his brushes; you’ll read stories from the Spanish-speaking countries to your children in English at bedtime and offer to cook on Fridays Spanish and Latin American meals; you’ll romance your partner  with a slow tango or mellow bolero and you’ll set aside Spanish learning time everyday with the same zeal that a Zen Buddhist meditates at dawn, not matter what. And you’ll do it because you deserve it. Because as a Spanish student you have every right to practice your language craft as a young violinist tortures his neighbours every Thursdays at six. And you’ll neighbours will probably love you after you invite them for some tasty tapas and teach them a few salsa moves. 

Now, if you are not a Spanish student, then relax. Stop paying for costly CDs and courses, admit to yourself that, whilst you like going to Spain, at the end the only thing you are interested in saying is “Dame otra cerveza,” and just hire your tourist guide, bilingual secretary, interpreter and translator, whichever your need may be. Play Sudoku to protect your brain against Alzheimer (though beware that it does not protect as well as learning a second language,) stay in the beaten tourist track where there’ll always be someone who speaks English and embrace who you are. 

There’s no shame in being monolingual, just as there is no shame of dreaming about learning a new language. If you want to take up all the opportunities that come with a second language, then be a Spanish student, and live your learning with all the passion and dedication that you can muster. If you don’t, stop making excuses and find your true call. Just decide who you are and live accordingly.