Personal Narrative: Learning The Spanish Language

Flashback to about eight years earlier when I first began to learn the basics of this language so unfamiliar to me, but the comfort to many people living in the area of Richmond. Sitting in my fourth grade class, a woman came and begun to teach us general Spanish vocabulary: greetings, colors, and numbers. Each year after that I took Spanish, and in the years following I learned more in depth of the Spanish language and the culture in many Spanish speaking cultures. As I entered middle school however, I learned something new. The Spanish within different countries usually have subtle differences with how words’ meanings and slang. Every year I took three steps forward, and one step back for I had a teacher from a different place each time. Beginning from the Dominican Republic, to right here in Virginia, Haiti, a university in New York, a woman from a Columbia, a woman who married a man from Guatemala, and lastly Puerto Rico, each teacher had subtle differences in their speech and vocabulary that would change the lessons being taught. Although this allowed me to learn more about each location, it also somewhat changed how I learned to communicate in Spanish. With one teacher who pronounced every syllable in every word, and another teacher who would cut off the endings of words that ended in “s” or
This place unfamiliar to me, the difference within the air, the thickness, the different scent, almost smelled fresher than what I had become accustomed too. We continued walking through the airport, going pass large windows that showcased the other large planes getting ready for takeoff, looking at the large open spaces throughout the halls, and the many other faces that were ready to begin their vacations. We walked into this large room, hundreds of people stand along with their luggage, waiting for the line to creep up closer and closer to the persons checking the