Welcome to a Multicultural World

Coming from a what is known as a Third World Country where Spanish is the official language, I never could understand why my mom wanted me to learn another language. Everything started when I was 4 years old with French. Then, it continued with English when I was 11 years old. However, at that time I wasn’t so in love with English as I was with French. I used to dream about going to Paris and visiting the Louvre and The Eiffel Tower.

At the end of my undergraduate studies, I realized how important it was to learn English. Initially it because I needed to learn English in order to read books. I still remember  going to my first Internship with my huge English-Spanish dictionary. After seeing my struggle with English, my brother bought a package of private classes for the both of us. As a consequence, I started pushing myself to learn my third language. 

 It took a lot of time: 5 years in total, and even now I am still learning. However, everything has paid off since I took my first English class. After spending 3 months on my first trip to US I became fluent. I came back to my country and got my first great job where an important requirement was to speak, read, and write English. Latter, the company sent me to Brazil for training for 1 week. I arrived to Sao Paulo, without any knowledge of Portuguese, but I was pretty confident in my language skills. However, I couldn’t understand many words from the first day of training because everything was in Portuguese. The second day, I found somebody who could speak English. I saw the light! After that moment, my training and the possibilities of learning changed.  Days later, I came back to my country and started reading manuals, contacting people by email in the US for analytical support, and also speaking with them directly   by phone.

Two years later, I traveled to Quebec, Canada and I lived there for two years. During those years, my French (which I learned during childhood) came back and now I am fluent in 3 languages again. And guess what?  I never  want to lose my French skills again!

Today, looking back I can see why my mom made me study French and then pushed me to learn English. Now I love different cultures, languages, and traveling!  It is fun for me to understand some languages by using the ones I know. For instance, I use my French and Spanish skills when I want to understand Italian or Portuguese. You should see how fun it is to speak with my Italian cousin, answering in Spanish or French. It's hilarious!

Conclusions? Sure! Don’t stop learning languages! Keep pushing yourself to continue learning and expanding your vocabulary. Use the knowledge from your own language to learn another one. Trust me, you will be surprised and happy with the results.

Welcome to a multicultural world.

By Evelyn Musslewhite, Spanish Instructor with The Language School