02/02/2021
✨Learning a new language is often romanticised but the reality of it is quite different. ✨
My experience learning Spanish started off as an exciting new opportunity at university. I studied Int’l Business, French & Spanish. French was always one of my better subjects in school & I loved the idea of learning Spanish too. So that’s what I did.
Looking back, I was extremely optimistic that starting a new language would be easy. Needless to say, anything worth doing is never straightforward, and I hit my first roadblock quite quickly. I failed my first year of uni because of Spanish, and subsequently had to repeat it. At the time I was crushed, but it was a great lesson in overcoming obstacles and I look back with fondness on this year which I used to really advance my Spanish.
In my third year of university, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to study abroad, & I went to Spain! I gained lots of confidence just by having to speak Spanish on a daily basis. It was an incredible experience and I would recommend it to anybody who has the chance to do it.
Post university, 7 or 8 years almost passed before I spoke Spanish again! At this stage, Brian and I decided to move to Spain. But before we got there, we worked and travelled in Mexico remotely. Along the way we used apps like Anki and of course Duolingo. This is also where we came up with the idea for Ella Verbs, but it would take some time for us to actually design & build it! I learned that language is like a muscle, but even if you stop training for a little while (or in my case, years), it will come back, and it will come back faster than you think.
Now that we’re living in Spain, almost 3 years have passed and speaking Spanish feels natural and I feel more confident than ever before. Day to day life has helped me to improve leaps and bounds but I am so grateful for those few years in university which are the foundation for everything I know. I try to speak Spanish as much as I can, with friends and colleagues. Practice makes perfect as we like to say!
I’m still learning & not sure it will ever end (and that’s ok!) Learning Spanish is one of the best decisions I’ve made 😊
