a love of languages…
I began to be passionate about languages 7 years ago when I went to study Spanish in Costa Rica. Until that point, Spanish had been just like every other subject in school: I was relatively good at it, but not exceptional, and I didn’t particularly enjoy studying for it. That summer changed my life in so many ways, and one of those ways was that it was the beginning of two great love affairs: one with Costa Rica and one with languages.
At age sixteen, I had two big goals in mind: I wanted to study languages, and I wanted to return to Costa Rica. I wanted to study at the University of Costa Rica for at least a year during my undergrad years. I even contemplated attending for all four years. I looked forward to returning to my friends, “my country”, and the type of life I wanted to live. Unfortunately, as often happens in life, we get waylaid. After getting married at 19, plans changed: I didn’t have enough $ to study abroad and, even if I had had sufficient funds, my husband would not have wanted to go. So my dreams of Costa Rica were all but forgotten.
My passion for languages, however, still burned. In high school, I continued studying Spanish. I don’t know if you could really call it “studying”, because I lived the language. I’m a little crazy, but I try to incorporate Spanish into my life in every way possible: I force myself to think in Spanish, my electronics are all in Spanish (TV, cell phone, iPod, etc.), and I have many friends and penpals with whom I only speak Spanish. It is a passion, a hobby, and a great love of mine.
And so, with that great love in mind, I began to study French. French, also a Romance Language (i.e. derived from Latin), is relatively easy for Spanish speakers. I already knew grammar structures and there are so many cognates and general similarities between Spanish in French that I was able to complete 6 years of French in just 3. I love French, although I don’t currently use it enough to maintain any true level of fluency (this is very unfortunate).
The summer after Costa Rica, I went to study Portuguese in Brazil. Portuguese is extremely similar to Spanish, and so 6 weeks of semi-formal instruction allowed me to communicate in Portuguese with my family, friends, and neighbors. When I began college at George Washington University, I brushed up on my Portuguese in a great little class they offered. Unfortunately, they didn’t offer anything higher than high-intermediate, so that was the end of that.
Finally, I began to study German during my last semester at U.Va. German was a trip, I will say that. It’s a difficult language (I do NOT care if English is “Germanic”; German is NOTHING like English!), hard on the ear, and completely illogical. I’m sure I just need to understand it better, and that I will do. Because languages are FUN.
And so, 7 years after my favorite summer ever, I remain fluent in Spanish and proficient in French and Portuguese. If push comes to shove, I can communicate clearly, via writing, in any of the above. My German is, quite frankly, a joke. But I’m working on that. And it’s damn fun.
And so it was with great interest that I read the following articles from the New Scientist. They discuss how our brains switch languages, how language learning positively affects our mental faculties, and how those of us who easily learn languages have more “white matter”. They’re interesting, at the very least, and so I encourage you to read them, too.
How bilingual brains switch between tongues
Juggling languages keeps brain sharper in old age
Fast language learners boast more white matter
that will be me. just you wait.
I will learn spanish, french, english, italian, german, and whatever I can get my hands on.
that has been my dream. my heart. to know and speak many languages.
Awww, Danny! Me too! My goal has always been to speak 10 languages with a level of fluency where I can converse and, more importantly, read poetry and literature in the eloquent original.
So here’s my list:
1) English
Japanese
2) Spanish
3) French
4) Portuguese
5) German
6) Italian
7) Greek
9) Russian
10) Mandarin Chinese
I’d also love to learn Esperanto because it’s such an incredibly interesting idea to me!!!
I studied Spanish for 4 years in high school and could speak/understand it fairly well… then I graduated… and that was 12 years ago (though it pains me so deeply to say that). My gramma is very outdoorsy (mountain climbing, hiking, camping, etc.) Though she is now 80 and is slowing down a bit, she doesn’t let that get in her way. She has been organizing kayak trips for our family and friends for a number of years. I never went on them, mostly because they were pretty costly trips- they would fly to exotic places like Palau. Well, this year I am turning 30 and my mom offered to help pay my way. Gramma announced that we would be going to Costa Rica- I was SO THERE!
I knew very very little about Costa Rica. I knew that it was in Central America, but couldn’t have told you which countries bordered it. So I did a little research- it sounded like paradise! I knew that it was going to be a fantastic vacation- with loads to do. I had absolutely no idea that I would be flying to a foreign country to find my people and my home! Everything about my experience in Costa Rica fit so uniformly with all I have ever wanted and believed in. This country is what girls like me always daydreamed about: A gorgeous tropical nation with a message of peace and preservation, full of super friendly down-to-earth people with generous hearts, educated minds, happy respectful children, and a strong appreciation for their unique ecosystems complete with monkeys and toucans and cute little Halloween crabs and a plethera of funny mammals the rest of the world has never even heard of. Palm trees, warm ocean, hammocks, zip lines, and the best damn vegetarian food I have ever tasted! This is my dream! All of it! I stepped off the plane April 21, 2006 and became a Die-Hard Tica in that instant. I can’t seem to turn it off, it’s like I’ve completely fallen in love with Costa Rican culture and I am unable to think of anything else!
I have always been a worldly sort of person, if you will- curious about other cultures and lands. I have been on a number of travels, including Italy, UK, Germany and Mexico, and have always dreamed of seeing more countries. If I were more motivated, I would have stuck to my instinct to learn as many languages as my brain would allow. And I still may, but now it does not seem as important. Now I do not have such strong desires to see the world (though I would never pass up the opportuniy to do so.) Now I only want to go back to Costa Rica. There’s No Place Like Home. PURA VIDA!
You are always welcome to become a tica
Maybe you are not a Costa Rican but you can become a tica… because as I always tell Erin, a Costa Rican is someone who was born in CR, but if you love CR no matter where you were born, you are a tic@
pura vida
Incredible. Such passion, such perserverance, such success.
Mariette, that was such an amazing story! You’ve actually just verbalized exactly how I feel about CR… I like to call it the homeland of my heart. I may not have been born there, but as Verny says, I’m tica all the way!!!
I hope to see you very soon in tiquicia!