Second Languages and Castillian Spanish

I had my first taste of Spanish in sixth grade, when I was eleven years old. We did a sort of language sampler program at my middle school, each a portion of the year, to determine if we would choose Spanish, French, or German after that. At the end of the year, we had to turn in our first and second preferences.  Fun fact- at first I turned in my card with French as my first preference and Spanish as my second. I remember coming home that day and telling my mom, who (pretty easily) guilted me into flipping my choices around the next day. Isn't it weird to think about how a seemingly small decision at age 11 impacted your life?

However, this process isn't the same everywhere in the world, or even everywhere in Illinois! In the globalizing world, many other countries seem to value the knowledge of multiple languages more than we do (c'mon, USA). I mentioned it before, but the simple fact that I'm an English assistant in a primary school is awesome; it is really emphasized that they start learning at a young age, which is best for picking up the native accent. 

Back to the USA. Here in Chicago, we have a pretty big Spanish-speaking population, so it always seemed really useful and gave me the perspective pretty early on that not everyone speaks English. I loved learning Spanish in high school. But you know those verb charts that are engrained into our heads from day one?

When we filled it out in class, the vosotros form was always blank! It got thrown away because it is only used in Spain.  In reality, Spain is one of the most popular countries for overseas study in college, so I would argue it is important to be exposed to it. So instead I found myself sitting in my first college Spanish class with a professor from Madrid, trying to decipher colloquial castellano, distracted by the theta, and trying to keep up with an accent that seemed about 5 times faster than what I was used to. Flash forward, and I now speak (most of the time..) in that accent.

So now I attempt to tie together these ideas. Learning another language is beneficial in more ways than one. I admire that European students are exposed to more than one language beginning at a young age, and wish we would adopt that practice here.  But on the other hand, if I had learned at a younger age it may have been easier, but learning at any time in your life will help you become a more global citizen and expose you to a culture in a way you may not have been without the other language.  But the other point is that you never stop learning. Even if I had started in second grade, my Floridian school would have taught me a different accent than what I spoke in college, and regardless, I would have had to put effort into developing my Spanish. And finally, relating the lack of the vosotros form to a larger scale, we can't forget that we are part of something bigger, and shouldn't ignore a certain culture just because it's easier to set it aside.  We are part of a diverse and globalizing world, and if we are able to, we should try to develop and flourish as global citizens.

So... sorry about the deep thoughts! Really, I just think it's so important to know another language and be aware of other cultures, and know that there is so much out there that we don't even know about. And I love to learn. And I hope that this adventure lets me do just that!