Hola, yo hablo Español!
Well, not quite.. But I’m getting there. One month ago I blogged here about wanting to seriously start learning Spanish. It’s amazing how much you can learn just by dedicating 15 minutes of your time to something each day.
I’ve been using mostly the app named Duolingo. It’s really easy to use and addictive! I have been listening to various Spanish songs and using a mixture of other apps too including Mondly, Memrise and my personal favourite Mindsnacks.
Give it a try and join me? My username is @sobeauworld and if you’re already a member of Duolingo please drop me your username in the comments so I can follow you too! I’d love that.
In the meantime I’d like to tell you about a man I met in Lithuania. We were enjoying the sauna in our hotel when a German guy entered. We quickly gathered that he didn’t speak English.. not even a little bit! Yet he spoke Russian, German, French, Lithuanian and possibly even more! He was hilarious (or drunk, I’m not quite sure…) and the only word he seemed to repeat in English was ‘amazing’ over and over again.
We spent a good chunk of time with this guy trying to have a conversation and I found myself attempting to use the tiny bit of German that I can remember from school. Weirdly enough even though I can not speak German or anything other than English I found myself still able to understand parts of what he was saying to the point where I could actually reply, but only in English.
I’m finding that is the case even when learning Spanish currently. I can understand what I’m hearing and what I’m reading but not piece things together enough to reply!
I think knowing more than one language is one of the most impressive achievements in life. I am so much more determined than ever to give this a shot and meeting more people around the world who don’t speak English always inspires me to try harder. I’d love to be able to communicate with locals when I travel more often.
It’s a slow process but a fun one and as I improve I feel more addicted to learning more! Anyone care to join me in learning a new language? ☺️
So Beau 
Thats exactly the experience that we’ve had over the years Sophie. We both speak a little German but always understand more than we can reply with. Same in French for Jo. I think you feel under pressure when you need to speak. I do anyway.
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Learning a new language takes time and effort, and there’s a phase in language acquisition called ‘silent phase’, where the learner is not expected to actively produce any language. That’s a necessary and normal step: after some initial exposure to the language, you’re able to understand much more than you can produce. Isn’t that wonderful? You’re just there and that means that new phases are waiting for you! Don’t give up!
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