A New Twist

Just this afternoon, I was reading something which got me thinking about ways in which I can further push myself to speak more, and speak more comfortably in Spanish.  With less than eight months to go before my trip to Spain, I've been feeling a little lax in my progress and despite doing a lot of reading, I have not been writing, or more importantly, speaking, nearly as much as I should.  I constantly tell myself that I should be speaking more, yet I rarely do it as much as I could and while I use writing as a source of practice, that too has suffered a little lately.  One idea that had never really occurred to me was to actually use English as a way to stress my Spanish.  I always thought using English was a crutch to fall back upon rather than something I could use to push me forward, however the suggestions I came across today have inspired me to at least give it a shot and see where it gets me.  Ideally, I'm going to write this post in English and then link it to my Spanish blog and see how well I do translating it all over.  Normally, when I write in Spanish, I do my best to simply write without thinking too much about the English equivalent.  I've written quite a bit in Spanish, but I fear it is often too oversimplified to get my true point across.  I wrote a little about finding your personality in a foreign language and perhaps this will be a way to start on that path.  I'm going to write, in English, on a variety of topics that may come up in everyday conversation when meeting someone who speaks a foreign language and then I am going to try to translate it all into Spanish without dumbing it down too much.  Let's see if this helps or hurts me.  Feel free to comment with your thoughts.

My job:  OK, to most, my job in not all that interesting, but here it is.  I am a manger of a well known fast food restaurant.  I have worked there since I was 16 years old and it's the only real job I have ever known.  My responsibilities include running shifts of 10-15 people, handling hiring and training of new crew members, and making the weekly schedule for the employees.  Of course there are plenty of other tasks I take on every day, but those are the basics.  I enjoy the fast paced environment as well as the variety of people I come across everyday.  I hope to someday be the owner of the franchise, but if I can't do that, there are quite a few of other positions for me outside of working in the restaurant day to day.

My interest in Spanish and Spain:  I started learning Spanish on my own over the summer of 2008.  I had learned a bit in school as a student but it wasn't until I spent my days with many Spanish speaking employees at my job that my desire to really speak the language came out.  After years of being able to hold simplified, broken conversations with my employees, I decided I wanted to truly push myself forward to speak the language as fluently as I could.  I decided to visit Spain for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is the birthplace of the language.  I have never traveled abroad and felt that if I were going to go to a Spanish speaking country, it might as well be the farthest away.  Although I have spoken to a few people through the internet from Spain, I don't actually know anyone there and this trip is definitely going to be a social challenge for me just as much as an educational one.

Hobbies:  I don't have any specific hobbies, per say, except for the things I do to improve my Spanish.  This includes reading books in Spanish, whether they are originally written in Spanish or were translated from another language, writing in Spanish, which can be found here, and watching movies and TV in Spanish.

My home:  I live in Connecticut, a small state northeast of New York.  I live in a small town sort of near the center of the state.  I grew up in Connecticut and have never lived anywhere else.  I like it here but lately have been thinking about trying to see more of the United States.  This country has quite a bit to see and it would be a shame to spend my life only ever seeing this small part of it.

Travel:  I have never traveled much in my life, which is why this trip to Spain is so important to me.  It is my first chance to really see more of the world.  I am hoping to have a great time and if I like it, maybe I will make plans to see more of the world after I get back.

Social issues:  I don't have any one topic that stands out in my mind that I would want to discuss, but there are certainly plenty of things going on in the world that hold my interest and I am sure I could discuss with anyone I meet abroad.

OK, so that´s all I have for now.  After reading this, head over to my Spanish blog and see if it all checks out.  I´m not sure if this will be the secret to my success or not, but it´s worth a shot.

Finding My Voice

Just the other night I tried, somewhat in vain, to explain through my Spanish blog my desire to develop a voice in my Spanish writing.  No, I don't mean I want to sound like Cervantes, per say, rather I want to have a distinctive voice in my writing.  I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a "true" writer, as I have never had anything published, but I would say that I enjoy writing quite a bit and I find I have a rather distinctive sound when I babble on in English.  The question is, can I ever develop an equally distinctive voice when I write in Spanish or am I destined to always sound generic and flat?

I've held this debate with myself several times, both when it comes to writing as well as speaking.  We all have personalities, both on paper and in person when we speak in our native tongue, but what happens when we try to converse in a foreign language, one where perhaps we are unfamiliar with the colloquialisms and subtle nuances of the language we are practicing?  On occasion I have managed to raise a few eyebrows when I do in fact use some sort of common phrase only heard in, say, Mexico, but for the most part, despite my familiarity with Spanish, I still find myself only scratching the surface when it comes to expressing myself in more vivid detail, a must for any novice writer.

One of my goals in my Spanish endeavors has always been to write a short story in Spanish, or at the very least, translate one of my English language stories over to Spanish.  I have struggled with this only because I find myself constantly searching for a way to say something in Spanish that sounds equivalent to me in English.  I find that in order for me to be able to write a short story in Spanish, I first need to be able to express myself freely in the language without constantly falling back on a sloppy English translation.

So my question is this.  Have you manged to insert your personality into your foreign language learning, and if so, how did it come about?  Or perhaps you've managed to create an entirely unique personality that only suits your second language.  How is it different from your native personality?  Even after several years of studying Spanish, I still find myself seeking my true voice.  I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.  Let me know and we'll talk again soon.