Member-only story
No one is going to teach you a language. Unless you pay them a lot of money. And they sit and watch over you 24/7.
Duh, Jen, you say, that’s basic capitalism.
Well, it wasn’t obvious to me a year ago when I moved to Argentina for two months after two years of not studying Spanish at all. I hadn’t taken a class because I had convinced myself that “Immersion is the only real way to learn!”
This is false.
Again, I am not a professional, but I am experienced.
I had taken four years of Spanish in high school, and dicked around with apps like DuoLingo since then, but I hadn’t intensely studied in a long time — maybe ever.
I arrived in Buenos Aires for my two-month internship at a Spanish-speaking company and discovered that I DID NOT KNOW SPANISH. My high school teacher liked to say I was fluent, but she lied.
People would talk to me, and I would just stare at them like ¿Cómo?
If I was one-on-one, I could maybe keep up a simple conversation. But if someone was giving a speech or if I was following a conversation, I was, well, not following it. And sitting there sorta listening to people wasn’t getting me anywhere. I wasn’t willing to subject anyone to a conversation about how me gusta la comida. The people at work had work to do…
