Why I Want to Learn Spanish

Recently, I’ve become obsessed with learning Spanish. This is partly due to the fact that my last three trips have been to Spanish speaking countries and partly due to my job. At least once per day, I encounter some lost non-English speaker looking for something and wondering if I abla espanol? With each encounter, all I can do is shake my head and then inwardly scold myself for not having studied a language I took all through high school and a good part of college.

Most Americans can boast to speaking at the very least, ‘high school Spanish’ but unfortunately, my Spanish is limited to a very unuseful assortment of commercial catchphrases and film and television quotes that I picked up over the years. My childhood Spanish instructors were the Terminator (Hasta La Vista, Baby) and a talking Chiquaqua (Yo qui ero Taco Bell). In college, my Spanish instructors were more of the same, except in a college kind of way. I may not speak high school Spanish but my movie Spanish is damn, near passable.

But it doesn’t get me very far, which becomes especially apparent when I travel to a county where English is not so sufficient. I always think I go places full prepared, equipped with a Spanish dictionary (which I inconveniently seem to misplace the first day of the trip but that’s beside the point), and I try to memorize a few important phrases like, “Donde esta Emilio Estevez?” and “No mas Cocaine, por favor.” You know, useful things like that.

It’s for this reason and more that I think I want to let go of my “I-hate-everybody-that-speaks-Spanish-because-I-can't" and enroll myself into Espanol 101. And not in a classroom, but somewhere exotic and cool...

I’m thinking Guatemala…