Spanish

[kybearfuzz]

Today was a different kind of day. I had a voicemail message from a man who said he needed someone to respond to him in Spanish. Sadly, after years of learning French, I speak it... horribly... which is near useless in this area.

Luckily, one of our newly hired inspectors named Alan is bilingual. I just needed him to translate for me, as the man just needed to know what documents to provide to me to get his shipment released. Alan was nervous, as he didn't really understand the process of my work yet, but he asked good questions.

Needless to say, Alan impressed me greatly. It sounds odd to say that. He obviously grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, but the way he rolled his R's and put the accents in the perfect place sounded amazing. I was envious of his fluency and suddenly I want to learn how to speak Spanish. It certainly would be far more useful.

Maybe I'll pick up Rosetta Stone in the future.

Comments

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

I was going to put my response to this in Spanish, but unfortunately, I lack the bilingual keyboard on my desktop.

If you're nearby a local junior or community college, I would check to see what they have for evening classes and self paced computer based tutorial classes. If the local Hispanic community there is Mexican/Central American, that's a slower and clearer form of Spanish for the novice, AND those communities are often very gracious with people who are willing to pull out what Spanish they have and will often pull out what limited English skills they have. Currently, I spend the majority of my day in Spanish and frankly, wouldn't want it any other way. Almost without exception, I'm treated with respect and warmth.