After being in Spain for almost two months, I think to myself I must be close to being fluent by now, right? My teachers, host mom, and family told me “after the first month your Spanish will have improved tremendously and you’ll be basically fluent!” Yet I still feel like I have a long way to go, and thats ok. Sometimes I find myself thinking in Spanish before English and when traveling I always first go to ask “¿Cuanto cuesta?” or “¿Donde está…?” even if I had traveled to an English speaking country. Often I feel at a loss of words in English but being able to be coming up with the word in Spanish more quickly and easily. Traveling from Oviedo to London, it was weird to me that all the signs were in English, the flight attendants spoke english, and everyone around me was not speaking Spanish. I had gotten so used to being surrounded by the language everywhere I go, even at home, that now it was strange not to hear it. I had begun to watch all my movies in Netflix in Spanish and even went to a movie theatre to see a new movie in Spanish. And yet I understood almost everything and I knew exactly what was happening (way more than I thought I would). I joined a local running club and now it comes naturally to talk with others in Spanish even as I’m running!! I find myself having advanced and sophisticated conversations with my host mom about my future and my family and even join in on everyday conversations with her and her friends. Maybe my pronunciation isn’t the best and I don’t know every single word, but I know these are all signs of huge improvement. I am so proud of myself for having come this far with the language and choosing a location to study abroad in which I would be immersed completely into not only a different culture but different language as well. I am so close to being fluent, I can feel it! Next stop, dreaming in Spanish.
