90 Dias: Practicando Español
Choice: To attempt to become multilingual (Spanish, German, French).
Behavior: To practice learning a new language every day by way of Duolingo or Coffee Break Spanish lesson for at least 20 minutes. To join up with informal Spanish conversation groups around Madison.
Habit: To build a routine that consistently incorporates Spanish language communication, media, and learning into my life (and eventually German and French).
When you start taking on various 90 day challenges, it probably would make sense to start with activities that you're sort of already doing so that some momentum is there to push you into day 1. Instead, I've been tracking this attempted Spanish practice habit for the past two months and have failed day after day to start more than four lessons. I was on a 70+ day German Duolingo streak, and then missed one single day and it was all over. I also took German lessons at the community college this summer and was so unimpressed with the quality of class that I stopped going five weeks in. I think my complete inability to even begin forming this habit has got me questioning my motivations for doing it it in the first place.
Am I just trying to convince myself that I'm the type of person who should be fluent in another language?
What is my end goal with this challenge?
After the 90 days, am I going to continue using Spanish for personal and professional use?
What is my WHY with this goal?
When I was a little kid, I loved summer school. One summer, I took Spanish classes and proceeded to speak complete gibberish to my parents afterwards, totally convinced that I was speaking fluent Spanish and that my mom and dad were totally impressed by my foreign language prowess.
A few years later, in good ol' 1998, I took my first semester of Spanish and continued with it as my foreign language throughout high school. It came naturally to me, at least more naturally than Chemistry and Math, so I continued taking classes in college, even minoring in it and studying abroad in Spain and Guatemala. I remember going to the Dinkytown Blockbuster down the street from my Minneapolis apartment and renting a stack of Spanish-language DVDs, in hopes that A Sea Inside and Y Tu Mama Tambien were going to rocket me to the top of my study abroad class in Sevilla (it didn't).
A few years later I participated in a month-long human rights delegation throughout the Guatemalan highlands (which mostly tested my ability to translate K’iche’ and deal with daily diarrhea in a cornfield toilet hole), and then after graduation did a solo trip to Mexico and Costa Rica.
While somewhere in Costa Rica, I remember not having a phone or any kind of directions, just an old fashioned point-and-shoot-camera to get me around the country. I was off the beaten path and trying to figure out which direction to go, so I walked up to a man in a booth in front of a hotel and started asking him questions in Spanish. I was still pretty confident in my speaking skills since I had just finished up my university Spanish program, so that's why I remember the man being noticeably surprised and responding with, "Su Español is muy bueno?!" UH, DUH, I just spent $100k on a degree so that I can now ask you basic direction questions in present tense and you can respond back in perfect English, making my entire life pointless.
I think I question my motivation for this challenge a bit because even though the U.S. is incredibly diverse in languages, my ability to communicate in Madison, WI is not dependent upon me learning another language. I have to actively seek out non-creepy grocery store opportunities to converse with people in Spanish, German, or French. Telling myself it's because I want to be able to understand the menu the one time every decade I visit Berlin isn't going to push me enough to put in the work. So what is?
I do have a natural interest and curiosity in learning languages. It's fun to learn new words and phrases and be able to actually use some of them while traveling, but is that my why? I think I never lived up to my own fluency expectations when I was regularly practicing Spanish in college and studying abroad. I picked it up rather quickly and easily, but then plateaued faster than everyone around me. 13 years later, I want to redeem myself and finally get to a level of proficiency for which I think my brain is capable. Maybe that will propel me to consider taking a job abroad in the future in a Spanish-speaking country or finally get started working toward my life-long goal to become a diplomat with the foreign service (maybe in 8 years). Yo puedo soñar.
Amusingly, when I was living in Japan, I got so overwhelmed with how terrible I was at teaching myself Japanese, that I ended up dedicating most of my evening free time hours to doing Duolingo Spanish lessons. I was ferocious and finished all of the lessons in a week or two. My plan now is to go back and do these same lessons all over again, as well as listen to 2-3 Coffee Break Spanish lessons a day while I'm at my desk.
HOWEVER, as I've learned in the past, no matter how many movies I watch and books I read, learning a language is dependent upon actually speaking out loud to other people and listening to and responding in that language, in real time. It's the scariest part of learning a language, but easily the most effective and most helpful. There are numerous free conversation groups around town for which I'll have to amp up my courage to join moving forward, and there are incredibly affordable language classes offered by Madison College (you just have to find the right instructor).
The learning and practice opportunities are definitely there, I just need to show up, put myself out there, and be okay with sounding like an absolute moron until I start sounding (and feeling) less and less foolish with each proper verb conjugation.
Vámonos, y'all!