Once a month, I’ve attended a Beginner’s Spanish event, mainly because the host chooses Latin American restaurants where, more than likely, the staff also speak Spanish. Besides, the social aspect of getting together with other people to eat good food and drinks, I like the idea of rebooting my Spanish-speaking ability.
Up until recently, I’ve relied on whatever smattering of Spanish I recall during these events. To “practice,” I’ve turned on the Latin American Spanish subtitles whenever I stream movies and series that have the option available. However, this last event has motivated me to level up my language acquisition.
We normally play a few games where we speak some Spanish. The rest of the time, we speak English. There’s always a range of Spanish-speaking ability among us, so English explanations are usually needed.
Despite my nonchalant approach to studying the language, I become amazingly competitive during these games. Especially for our version of the game Taboo. We are forbidden to say any part of the word or phrase we’re giving clues about in English, but the answer must be in Spanish.
During one round, my vocabulary escaped me. As one person gave the clue in English, I knew that she had described “ants.” I stated out loud that I couldn’t remember the word in Spanish. The guy beside me said, “hormigas.”
That wasn’t the only time that phenomenon occurred during the game. As a matter of fact, who knows if we would have tied if I could have recalled the words in Spanish. Perhaps he would have stepped up his game as well. Nonetheless, the next day, I started a free online Spanish course.
The daily lessons are up to 10 minutes long and designed to make the user feel like a winner by celebrating even the smallest wins. The nerd in me looks forward to these daily lessons. The enticement is baked into the cake. The real win is speaking more fluently at the next Beginner’s Spanish event.