Dear friends,
how are you doing? How was your weekend?
Coronavirus has become part of our lives just like everything else that came and went like a wave in the world over the years. Have you ever felt like you were so good at something that it got boring, so boring that it didn’t challenge you anymore? This is something that a lot of young people feel and anyone living out of alignment very far from a purposeful life no matter what age you are can feel exactly like this.
Relocating to Spain in the year two thousand and four came after I found that I could land myself in pretty much most jobs after successfully managing a business for roughly two and a half years in the United Kingdom. With the training received over time, along with one major promotion I became skilled and apt. As a twenty-three-year-old, after that job ended, I wanted something different, challenging and new. I always wanted to learn languages and made plans to move to Spain. My very first destination was Valencia, where I was enrolled in a language school to begin my studies.
I remember people’s opinion about that move and of course because my reasons were true to me nothing could sway me. So here goes, this is what happened from the day I arrived at the house I was going to live in.
- Oops, the Spanish I have learnt from an American course which I used for my studies at home before arriving in Spain was South American Spanish.
I had to start straight away at the school to rewire the words and conjugation used in South America to the way Spanish (Castellano) in Spain was spoken.
Choosing Valencia in two thousand and four was intentional because there were hardly any English-speaking foreigners that settled in Valencia, meaning I was basically forced to speak in Spanish all the time. To be understood by the Spanish I consciously and unconsciously did the following:
- I could not translate everything directly from English to Spanish.
- They are Spanish expressions to use which replaced English expressions and quotes.
- Masculine and Feminine words and conjugating the verbs accordingly.
- I had to think of every word, try and remember it and speak it.
- I had to amplify my vocabulary.
Learning a language has basically removed all the old habits that I didn’t want to keep, reprogrammed the entire old conditioning. There are positive and negatives to this, meaning the way I expressed myself in English was slowly disappearing as well. Guess what, the F word was a word that felt foreign to my brain. By the time I did an analysis; in six months’ time, I realised that I finally did it, I had removed the F word from my life, Yes, Amen!
This is what learning a language does especially when it’s time to leave the school grounds.
- You have to think every word you use through and the way you’re expressing yourself. Like for example in Spain, they don’t use the word please after asking for a coffee, tea, whatever in a restaurant. If you use the word “por favor,” as in “Quiero un cafe con leche por favor,” for an English speaker this sentence would be rude without the word “por favor”. Por favor means “please” in English and the Spanish usually would just get straight into it by using the verb “querer,” which means “want” in English. So, a direct translation, if you’re asking for something in a restaurant, it would basically sound like this, “I want a coffee.” “Por favor” at the end of the sentence gives you away as a foreigner in a split second.
- When you spend the first three months speaking a language you consider the rules taught in school and the native speakers’ expressions and use of words. You begin to decipher that you’re not in Valladolid; the only city in the whole of Spain where pure Spanish (Castellano) is spoken. So, whether you’re specialising in Literature in both English and Spanish you would begin to understand that most people can’t speak their own language one hundred percent. Even Federico García Lorca isn’t an exception, he is a Spanish poet that gave up University. Hey, maybe he was born in Valladolid ?. (Sorry, I went on a tangent). The point here is that your senses are highly active, like that of a child who begins to read and speak, but before that, you’re really curious and even saying some words wrong. Your listening, thoughts, observations, tolerance, patience, self-control, compassion, kindness, beliefs and more are re-evaluated and tested. You come to see more than what you conditioned yourself or what society and culture conditions in people. Personally, this was one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve had, the year two thousand and four was a year where I have learnt so much about myself, so much beyond what I could comprehend or that I’m telling you right now. I also understood that there was much more I could tap into.
- I must warn you unless you are not born into a mixed marriage where languages and nationality cross over, you can just wake up one day wondering what your original mindset was like if you’re not balancing the mindset you were brought up with to the new mindset you are now adopting. So, I remember the first time I dreamt in Spanish, I was over the moon. There is a saying that if you dream in the language, you’re trying to master it means you can speak it with fluency. So, where’s the line, when you stop dreaming in the language you grew up in?
- Your brain is constantly training and working while speaking, writing, reading, walking down the street seeing the signs, listening to the radio play in a coffee shop, watching people’s verbal and non-verbal cues as they speak. You easily absorb the language you’re learning, because you have opened up to learning, absorbing information and actively speaking which makes your conscious and subconscious mind very active. It’s almost like you’ve put a motor on it by choosing to ramp up your learning.
It was really interesting to see the elderly join language schools and socialise especially if they’ve relocated from another country seeking retirement life elsewhere. With “Intercambio,” meaning interchange, you can learn a language through socialising outside the school grounds and can still make friends. This is a nice way to pick up languages. This way you exchange one language for another, two parties benefit learning a language and making friends at the same time.
Other benefits of learning languages according to this article:
Top ten benefits of learning a foreign language
- Boosts brain power
- Improves memory
- Enhances the ability to multi-task
- Sharpens the mind
- Keeps the mind sharper for longer
- Enhances decision making
- The first language is improved
- Improves performance in other academic areas
- Increases networking skills
- Provides better career choices
Let me know your thoughts. Do leave a comment.
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
