Spanish and Life Passions
Yesterday evening, I signed up for Rosetta Stone’s site Shared Talk. Ever since, I can only say that my life is now complete. Ever since, I can only say my Spanish knowledge has been incomplete. Ever since, I have foreseen that I would write an article about my experiences on the site.
I was seeking to truly personalize the language Spanish in my life. The nature of my academic career leans towards that I would cease to learn Spanish in my second year, after taking Spanish II. Since I have found myself genuinely passionate about the two foreign language classes I had taken in the past, Spanish I and Latin I, I had, upon realizing I probably would not continue the high school Spanish track, believed I could only overcompensate for my lack of classes.
Thus, I found the Shared Talk while searching for a way to find Spanish pen pals, native speakers who I could learn from. Seeing Shared Talk, I was surprised but truly ecstatic to have found an apparently omnipotent solution to my dilemma. Shared Talk was everything I was looking for; a facility beaming with lifefulls of native speakers of all languages and all the tools we’d need to teach each other… Chat, mail, and voice chat.
I had started off finding a few native speakers of Spanish on the site to mail, but while waiting for replies, I tried out the voice chat. I quickly met a nice man who was an engineer seeking to learn English, but I was all too easily intimidated. Though I never for once assumed that passing one year of Spanish with flying colors would equip me with all that I needed to hold a conversation with a native speaker, I was all too quickly struck full-blown with the force of my incompetence. And I was inspired.
It was then that I arranged for myself a fair schedule of learning. I would start off sending mails to native speakers of Spanish. In writing letters, I could take my time and look up the vocabulary required for me to write what I wanted to write. As I saw that I started writing letters more proficiently and knew the vocabulary needed for me to express myself properly, I would move onto real-time chatting, where I would be required to respond and read quickly.
All through this, I would softly read the Spanish I type and receive to myself out loud so that one day, I may voice chat in a foreign language without guilt of my awkward nonresponsiveness.
And at the end of the day, I can rest assured with myself that Spanish was not just a class; it was the start of a life passion.
September 12, 2009 at 8:31 pm | Lifepost | No comments
Backspace
Internet chatting is not the same as face to face conversation.
This is a truth which all newbies, to either world(though help come to those for whom internet chatting is the first), learn quickly.
Backspace is a convenient key.
Those who strive to guard themselves from regret learn quickly that passiveness is its truest precedent.
I had typed more words in this article, but I backspaced them out.
Now, empty, I ponder and wonder.
If those lost words were truly worth the extra keystrokes.
September 7, 2009 at 8:12 pm | Reflections | No comments