Español

I took three years of Spanish in college and got good enough to read newspaper articles. Then twenty years passed and I forgot nearly everything. Since my house is in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, I started thinking about brushing up on those language skills when I moved in. But it wasn't until June, when I met my now-Spanish tutor that I actually started practicing.
      I got the push I needed when I went to a meetup and met someone who wasn't completely fluent in English. In Germany this is a thing: you find a "Tandem Partner" and meet to spend half the time working on their foreign language and half the time working on yours. I love this model, because you only need to feel stupid half the time. Luckily, when I proposed this to the person I had just met, he didn't think it was crazy.
     Meeting weekly to work on a language is just enough to remind you how much you have to learn. But I've been newly inspired by an old college friend who reminded me what I good language student I had been. And I thought, "That's right, I'm someone who studies hard!" Index card flashcards and writing vocabulary words ten times each is now passe, but I'm loving all the language apps out there. I still feel like all I do is remember how much I have to learn, but I have high hopes of moving into the intermediate level during the coming year.