Always Keeping My Spanish Language Active

By Neal Walters | January 26, 2009

My first foreign language in school was Latin – a great language to prepare you for any university. But then we moved, and the only language offered was Spanish. I found Spanish more fun, because people in West Texas actually spoke it, where as Latin was mostly just reading and learning complex grammar.

My high school Spanish seemed to “stick”, even though I’m always talking to people who have totally forgotten whatever language they learned in school. Perhaps they didn’t have a true love for language, or perhaps they just never made opportunities to continue their studies.

I worked at a Dairy Queen and a janitorial company in high school. In both jobs, I had plenty of opportunities to work with Latinos. I even picked quite a colorful vocabulary.

Our high school Spanish Club sponsored an annual trip to Mexico city each summer. At the end of my junior year, my parents and I went, and it was another boost to learning Spanish. From a nearby Junior College, I even got three hours college credit for the trip.

Speaking of college credit, I took advanced placement tests for Spanish when I went to college. Due to my scores, I actually got fourteen hours of credit. Along with some other math and science tests, I was basically a sophomore in college my first year there.

During my Bachelor’s in Business, I took three more Spanish classes. One was in Spanish conversation, and the other two were Spanish literature, where the teacher spoke in Spanish, we took notes in Spanish, and of course the tests were in Spanish.

Then, back in the early 1980s, I tried some French, Portuguese, and Hebrew, using the Pimsleur system. After trying other courses that didn’t work, I was very impressed with how easy Pimsleur was. I made two trips to Brazil, in which I was able to “convert” my Spanish into Portuguese by learning a few additional words.

I got a consulting position in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1995. If would have learned more if I would have lived with a family, instead of living by myself. There were several English-only consultants in my office, and speaking Spanish really wasn’t required, but I tried when possible, and was encouraged by my Puerto Rican co-workers.

After burning a lot of money on dozens of differents types of language courses, I got a good feel for which ones worked, and which ones didn’t. Eventually, I started creating my own courses for Hebrew and Spanish, and started building my own Spanish online learning center. We are currently working with several native Spanish speakers from different parts of the world.

Try our new learning center for free lessons at the Learn Spanish Online website.

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