Whenever people think of learning a new language usually it’s with the idea that they will be able to talk to the people that speak the language, learn about their culture, and maybe even work with or in those countries. Yes, but for myself and maybe others as introvert (or not) there’s something else.

What I’ve found in the last few weeks is that I have to speak the language to be able to speak it, but normally I prefer to let others speak, and ask the questions that lead me deeper into understanding what they’re on about.

With Spanish I was still trying to do this, but I didn’t have the vocabulary in my mind to even understand what they were talking about. So I decided I should start by talking more about myself.

Two things I hate doing in conversation are talking extensively about myself or generally being expansive in my answers, this is because of the second thing, I hate waffle and generally repeating conversations or going over mundane topics.

Spanish I’m learning to embrace both and it’s also allowing me to start working on my pronunciation which is quite Australian and slurred at times. Because in Spanish those accents and pronunciations make a difference to the word, none more so than año.

I never thought the language would do so much to change my attitude towards my conversation and use of the English language.