Language

I’ve sometimes compared learning tai chi to learning a language–practice yields fluency, we strive for “correct” performance, we make mistakes, laugh (or sometimes frown), and move on. And in each case, we have the joy of growth. Well folks, this July, for one very intensive week, I’m throwing myself back into learning Spanish, a language in which I was once quite proficient. Dartmouth College offers their Rassias method courses (developed for the Peace Corps) in the summer. Whooooeee or ¡Guau!

Do you have a second or third language? Do you feel like a slightly different person when you speak it? Do you practice it a lot or a little? I’d be interested to know.

A veces traigo a practicar, hablando en voz baja acerca de las cosas en mi casa, mi yarda, no importa qualquiera. A veces trato a describir lo que estoy haciendo, pero mi vocabulario ahorita es muy pequeno!

Well, those two sentences are probably full of errors, but that’s okay. We try, we learn, we improve. And our laptops don’t give us instant access to the accent marks and diacritics of other languages (like that n in pequeno above which needs a nice wavy line above it so that the n is pronounced more like nyeh not nnnn).