I’ve been trying to learn Spanish many times over the years, but two years ago I began studying in earnest, taking a class that meets twice a week. There’s no homework, so it’s entirely up to the individual how far they want to go. For me, the frustration was in forgetting what I’d learned last week, let alone last month, so I found myself continually having to relearn past tenses, the differences between para and por, and vocabulary.
But then it struck me–who cares? Just the act of studying a language was good for me and it had to be good for my brain. My inspiration for studying language was my grandfather, who took up languages as a hobby and had books and records for about a dozen European languages, from Greek to Swedish. Some of my earliest memories are of him in his studio, the sounds of strange words floating into the hallway. I decided that I’d learn languages, too. I just didn’t know it would be so damn hard.
I wrote about my reasons for studying Spanish in an article that appeared on nextavenue.org called Why I’ll Be Studying Spanish Forever. It was also picked up by forbes.com.
