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.
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