The Importance and Challenges of Learning Spanish Essay

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Spanish Challenges A language that started very interesting turned out to be difficult to master. My primary language in my home and community was English. However, over the years, while growing up, going to different places, and hearing people speak different languages, Spanish became very appealing to me. I attended schools that were highly populated with Hispanic students who spoke both English and Spanish. Although there were other languages offered in school, Spanish was the only one that I desired to learn and master. In an effort to do so, I studied Spanish and came acquainted with some students who spoke Spanish. This was not only just an opportunity to learn and master Spanish but a means to interact and communicate as well with my Hispanic friends of my class. Throughout my school years, learning to speak a Spanish language was in deed a great experience and very challenging. The challenges that I faced kept me or held me back from mastering this language, which included contextual understanding of words, putting words into practice, and language barriers. It was difficult to understanding Spanish words or phrases that came before and after a particular word in this speech. Some words or phrases used or spoken in English could be defined entirely different if spoken in Spanish. For example, the word me in English means exactly what it says, but in Spanish, me could mean I, my, or me. The sounds, blending, and usage of words played a major part in the correct pronunciation and understanding of Spanish speech. It was very common for sounds of words to blend together. In Spanish the vowels’ sound are generally more distinct then in English. Spanish constants are generally softer and somewhat less distinct. As an English speaker, pronouncing the r/rr was probably the most difficult problem of my experience in learning Spanish. For example, the word pero means but and the word perro means dog. If you use the words wrong, it would not make sense in Spanish language. Moreover, this language has a few unfamiliar sounds and patterns that were difficult for me to get used to. It became challenging especially when it involved producing sounds that I never had to produce nor was a part and used during my everyday speech dialog. Learning the basic skills like alphabets was never a problem. In fact alphabets and learning colors were the simplest steps to take hold of in learning Spanish. At first, I found it exciting and amazed of how easy it was for me to grasp, remember, and identify certain letters, sounds, and words and then using them to interact or communicate with my Hispanic acquaintances. However, learning to speak in Spanish became a little overwhelming. I started to run into trouble when trying to use Spanish words learned and then composing sentences. Spanish grammar is more complicated than that of English in its verb system. The verbs are conjugated differently in each person and there is also a subjective mood. In addition, every noun is either masculine or feminine. This is important because the gender of the noun affects the word used before a noun. I had to be careful in my speech dialog when using Spanish grammar. At times, I was tensed and insecure about using the grammar that I had learned because of fear of saying the wrong thing or being misunderstood. My insecurities and fears could have held me back from continuing to learn and mastering the Spanish language. In pursuing another language, there were instructors who had language barrier to teach different languages. Classes taken were taught by Spanish natives who were limited in speaking English fluently. This made learning and following along very complicated and possibly held me back from advancing to a higher level in speaking Spanish. Learners of a second language, like Spanish, faced shortage of teachers. From taking Spanish classes in the past, there would only be one teacher who taught this class
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