*Spanglish

If Spanish is the 2nd most popular language in our country, how come only a select few of us can speak it fluently? That’s the question I propose because the more and more I think about it, the more it comes back to a matter of “want to” over desire.

Truth be told, learning a foreign language such as Spanish would be very beneficial to a lot of us; yet, we sit and complain whenever there’s a failure to communicate. Is it frustrating? Yeah, I’ll admit it sometimes is; but half the time, we [as Americans] bring it on ourselves. For what reason? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re content in our ways and don’t want to really understand, but maybe it’s also that some of us feel that there would be no point in trying to in the first place. Either way, this goes both ways and you could easily make an argument for both; however, I can only argue from the way I see things.

It’s like this. I know very little Spanish, or remember very little I should say, from classes I took back in High School; but when it came to actually applying what I had learned, it was like taking a shot in the dark. Sure, I can string together a couple words and phrases and even understand a little bit (when I slow everything down), but it’s still hard for me since I never took any of it seriously. I figured (just like most) English was predominately what I would be speaking anyway, so why bother? And that right there, is the crutch that a lot of us love to rely on. I, myself included.

Needless to say, my [American] pride got the best of me at the time; but now I’m making a concerted effort to better my Spanish speaking dialect. Slowly, but surely, I’m making strides in becoming fluent but progress is a slow process. Yet and still, I intend to remain focus in my efforts and really give this a try; but, for now, call it a work in progress.