Sanchay Devnath Week 9: Spanish in Costa Rica
My family and I went on a ten-day-long vacation to Costa Rica during winter break. During this time, we visited numerous locations in the tropical country. Due to this constant changing of location, we were required to travel in vans--a lot.
Costa Rica's national language is Spanish--the same language I spent three years learning. Since I was the only one who could remotely understand and speak the language, I was the medium of communication between my parents and our driver. Did the years of honing my ability to understand the intricacies of the linguistic arts of Spanish help me converse with native speakers? Yes--to an extent.
Although I had not practiced the language for around seven months, I could hold casual conversations at a slow rate. However, whenever a native speaker spoke at their accustomed tempo, I found myself constantly asking them if they could repeat themselves--often not understanding them after their reiteration.
Despite my lack of fluency, my little understanding of the language enabled my family to better navigate through a country that only spoke Spanish. Would I recommend the three years of Spanish education? Depends if you hope to travel to Costa Rica, then sure it will help, but the vast majority of Americans would likely not need it in their life, as the Spanish needed to communicate what you need can be acquired through Google Translate. However, I would recommend learning AP Spanish if you seek to be able to effectively communicate with Spanish speakers and completely understand what a native speaker says.
This ability to communicate with others is a form of power one has once one learns a language. This power can only be attained by years of mastery in the education system.
I enjoyed reading about your experiences in Costa Rica. I especially appreciate how your blog is centered around personal anecdotes, because it establishes genuinity. Although you voice an opinion about foreign language classes, you do not overgeneralize it or shut down other views, which I also admire. I actually shared a similar experience when I visited Quebec City, Canada this summer. I learned French for several years, and my knowledge came in handy when speaking with locals. But much like you explain, I also felt that there clearly existed a gap between non-native and native speakers. I like how you framed a question about this matter, before going in-depth. It helped me navigate your text better.
ReplyDeleteI ultimately agree with your viewpoint—which you powerfully summarize in your concluding lines—on foreign language requirements at school. It may help when traveling abroad, but still most Americans do not have the need to use these skills because English is so universal. But I do not think that the only point of learning a new language is to be able to speak it. We learn about new cultures and beliefs, and adopt a new, broader view of the world. The American education system, hence, helps us rid our narrow perspectives.
I hope you had a lot of fun during your vacation in Costa Rica! I found your description of your experiences there to be quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteMany of us here at American learn a second or third or fourth language for the sake of college applications (usually French or Spanish on top of our native languages). You bring up a good point about the actual practicality and usefulness of learning that extra language, since as you say, you most likely won't find much opportunity to utilize that language while here in the United States. But, as you discovered, on the off chance that you do find yourself in a situation with people who don't speak much English, then those 4 years of Spanish or French classes might come in handy.
I agree with the sentiment that being able to communicate with others is its own form of power, but I'd like to discuss another perspective on language and power. English is the main language of the United States, and as a result, almost everything in America is in English or has an English translation. But even in countries around the world that have their own languages, many people still learn English; in some countries, English is even a mandatory class in school on top of their class for their native language. This is largely because of how many of the greatest world powers (including America) have English as their main language. So even without getting into the details of matters such as cultural imperialism, it is easy to understand how political and social power can connect to language.