Spanish

An anglo-American coworker heard me speaking Spanish with another coworker who is originally from El Salvador. My American friend was not ok with us speaking in Spanish and summed up his views with the line "Welcome to America...now speak English!"

I understand where he was coming from. As an American, English is the language he grew up with and it's the main language used here in his homeland. It may have been a bit jarring for him to hear his coworkers speaking a language that he doesn't understand. Maybe he thought we were talking negative things about him or the company, but we weren't.

People who speak English in America are in the main stream. Jobs and opportunities may come easier for them. But how is not to one's advantage to learn a second language?

When I was in secondary school in Trinidad, we didn't have a choice. We had to study Spanish and French as part of the curriculum at the junior level (age 11 to 14). Foreign languages were optional in secondary school after that, but I continued French until I was 16 years old.

When I was hired by that particular company as the receptionist, the beginner-level Spanish I learned in Trinidad is what I polished up when I realized how many people spoke it. I began to ask, Miguel, my Salvadorean coworker "como se dice...?" which basically means "how do you say...?"

"Como se dice glasses, Miguel?", I asked as I admired his blue-tinted eye wear. "Lentes!", he told me.

"Como se dice straw, Miguel?" I needed a word for the drinking straw I'd gotten with my Burger King lunch meal. "Pajita!", he called back. "Gracias!", I thanked him.

I annoyed poor Miguel with questions like those for weeks. My vocabulary grew even more when I started going to a Spanish/English chatroom online. Then, I caught the eye of a guy named Mario, who was also from the job and also from El Salvador originally but limited in English skills. That's when my rusty old Spanish skills really started to improve. I had no choice but to find the Spanish words to communicate with my cutie, mi guapo. He loves to buy me flowers and take me out and calls me his "morena preciosa", his precious brown-skinned lady. I would say that that title roughly equals nubian princess...and I love it.

Mario is learning English from a pricey little self-study program that he bought, it's called "Ingles Sin Barreras" or English Without Barriers. Also, he learns new words that I teach him. It's not that hard to learn a new language.

Yes, this is America and it's to anyone's advantage to be fluent in English while living here but there is also an advantage is knowing another language and if it comes easy to you, why not learn?