The Spanish Lessons That Don't Happen in a Classroom

I would dare to say that in terms of grammar, I learned essentially nothing new. I didn't learn how to conjugate some new tense, I didn't learn a general rule for how to format a sentence accurately, I just didn't really learn a new part of Spanish grammar. Even more, I would claim that though I did learn a good amount of new words, for the most part, I was very comfortable with the words I heard said around me, and so my learning wasn't really focused on the vocabulary.

But in all honesty, I can do those in class. Yes, its not optimal to do so, and its much easier in a Spanish-speaking environment, but if a Spanish class teaches you something, its the formal grammar and vocabulary of Spanish. So, judging by the fact that these areas weren't where my learning was focused, I would say that my past Spanish classrooms have been pretty successful. The Spanish classroom that is Costa Rica, however, functions a little differently.

So I arrived, and my family would speak to me relatively slowly. When they finished asking me a question and had to talk to each other however, it was more or less gibberish. Their words flew out of their mouths as water flows out of a wide-open faucet, or so it seemed. And I started with my speech being relatively slow as well. We were more or less testing each other. I was asking my family if my English accent wasn't so bad that they couldn't understand me and whether my sentences were actually comprehensible. My family was asking me how fast they could speak before they lost me in their verb conjugations and “ñ's.” The answer that we seemed to get was that my Spanish was definitely one that could be understood, and that my family can speak at a medium pace for my understanding.

For me, that meant that it was time to speed up. So slowly over the next few weeks, I began to try to just spit out what I wanted to say as fast as I could before I lost too much accuracy. And it worked. Little by little, I could feel my Spanish speeding up, and the fact that my family understood me only helped me build confidence to keep trying. At this point, I am pretty happy with how I speak Spanish. No, its definitely not perfectly fluent. No, my words don't flow like the water of a faucet, but that faucet is definitely opened wider than it was before I came to Costa Rica, and its opened wider than I expected it would be.

But a conversation in Spanish is two parts: speaking and listening for the response. So in order for my speaking to improve, I must've been doing an equal amount of listening, and in the middle of the program, I had this strange moment. My host sister and mother had begun their own conversation while Julia and I sat at the dinner table, and though I always tried to keep an ear open, usually my ear didn't catch much. Somehow, though, I had followed their whole conversation. And as the next couple weeks went by, I realized it wasn't an accident. Though I couldn't speak as fast as they could, my mind had learned to keep up with their conversations. Yes, there were points I missed, but the main concepts were definitely there. I also recognize that I was very used to their voices and their rhythm of speech by this point, so it in general is easier for me to follow what they are saying than someone I just met and heard their voice for the first time, but regardless, it's definitely been a noteworthy milestone.

Even more invaluable, with the knowledge that my Spanish was understood, I could begin to express myself. I could begin to put sarcastic, sad, whiny, complainy, whatever tone I wanted on what I said. In Mexico, when I tried, these tones were often lost in translation as a result of my less developed Spanish. Here, with the confidence that I was understood, I could begin to change up the way I used the language to match more who I was. In other words, this years trip allowed me to develop my Spanish “voice,” something quite invaluable.