It is hard to have a personality when learning another language.
When I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, two months ago, my initial focus was successful communication. I faced every interaction with a Porteño with panic—am I going to understand what they are saying? Will I be able to respond appropriately? What is the past preterito pluscuamperfecto imperfect form of the subjunctive mood when followed by a connector word or indicator, and when do I use it? After being thrust into an all-Spanish-all-the-time environment, I felt so nervous and self-conscious about my ability to speak that to my host mom’s question, “How old is your brother?” I responded “diecicuatro”; She looked at me pitifully and corrected me saying, “catorce?” while I just hung my head in shame.
When learning a new language, everything about the way you speak, who you are, and your native tongue becomes glaringly obvious. English-speaking Caitlin from Dallas, Texas, a student at Georgetown, is a sarcastic person. She often incorporates dry humor and wit into her speech (successfully or not is left to the interpreter), and she loves slang and using acronyms ironically. She is outspoken and curious, enjoys getting to know people, could sit for hours over coffee with a friend, likes Netflix binges, and loves long walks on the beach.
But foreign student living in Buenos Aires Cait, whose full name has been shortened for easier pronunciation, is rather timid. With aims to avoid any cultural faux pas, Cait is overly polite at the dinner table, nervously stumbles over struggled verb conjugations, and sometimes forgets to greet people with a kiss on the cheek. Cait knows well the practice of smiling and nodding blankly, pretending to understand, and the all-too-familiar embarrassment when you realize that you have been asked an open-ended question. “Where are you from?”—Cue simultaneous closed-mouth smiling and nodding. Cringe.
As I transitioned to life abroad, my biggest obstacle was not learning how to navigate a new place or adjust to a different culture. My daunting struggle was trying to translate Caitlin into Spanish.
Ultimately, the key is confidence. Language acquisition becomes easier, as fluency is never an instantaneous phenomenon. Once you accept the fact you will sound like a yanqui, or American, and that it will not be perfect, why hold back? With two months behind me, my speaking skills are still limited, but my confidence in using them has risen substantially. After all, as author Amy Chua said, “Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.”
Being immersed in a language allows you to learn things that could never be taught in a classroom. I can pick an Argentine out of a crowd when I hear the –sh sound instead of –ll in words like calle or ella. I supplemented my Spanish vocabulary repertoire with words like che, a word characteristic of Argentina that means “hey” that many will often use to start a sentence or to grab someone’s attention.
But so far, my proudest moment and characteristically Caitlin thing I've said was after dinner one night when we were discussing the merits of good dessert. I was raving about my favorite part of Argentina, dulce de leche, and proclaimed, "No necesito un vehículo para dulce de leche."
Opens in a new window