Learning a Language

As a former military brat with a Spaniard for a mother, I’ve grown a bit of an affinity for language learning. Currently on my list are German, Mandarin Chinese, French, Italian, and far too many more to continue this sentence. I am fluent in Spanish, have background in Italian (as I used to speak it fluently), and have spent two years learning Mandarin Chinese. But what is the best way to learn a language?

Let’s begin with Spanish. I love Spanish, speaking it, reading it, and even writing it. It has a certain vibe to it when it rolls off the tongue. How did I learn the language? I was raised with it, learning Spanish alongside my English. My mother would speak in mostly Spanish, and my father spoke more in English. So really I learned a form of Spanglish first. Throughout my life, there has been many a vacation to Spain, visiting family and seeing the beautiful country itself. Then I studied abroad last fall in Salamanca, Spain, and after that I was all set. These big and little immersions into the language and culture have certainly helped build confidence in not just understanding the language, but also in speaking it.

Moving on to Italian, and how I quickly picked up the language and quickly lost it as well. My family was stationed a little north of Venice, Italy. At first, my brother and I attended the American schools on the military base, just so we could settle into the new environment. After a few months, we were moved to the Italian schools (which might I add, were awesome). At first, it was all charades to understand the other kids, and to learn the language. Not only did I pick up Italian quickly, but due to the similarities of this language to Spanish, my ability to communicate in Spanish shot up. For kindergarten, first, and second grade, I was trilingual.

When I moved back to the States, I did not need to use Italian. We spoke it at home sometimes, but it often turned back to Spanish and English. Once my tongue did not have to speak the language, it became lazy, and soon enough, forgot the language altogether. After a couple of years in the States, and no trips to Spain, even my confidence with speaking Spanish was fading.

Then I moved again, to the east coast. I was beginning middle school, and began to take French and Spanish at school. Both were easy enough to ace, and after three years, I knew how to count and introduce myself in French. In Spanish, I learned some scattered vocabulary associated with classroom items. That was in three years.

When I moved to the high school, I had the option to take Mandarin Chinese. I knew that I would be wasting my time in French or Spanish, and thought it would be wicked cool to learn a language that does not take it's roots in Latin. This class was unlike any other, and I took it for two years. The entire class took place online.  You could go at your own pace and review lessons whenever you wanted. I learned so much in that class. When I transferred high schools, I continued my studies through Rosetta Stone.  I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of information I absorbed even without immersion or an actual teacher speaking in Chinese on a regular basis.

How do you learn another language best? For me, it’s actually being surrounded entirely by the language. Going to the country where the language makes its home (it’s near impossible to truly understand a language without knowing its culture) or taking classes where everything is in the language you are trying to learn are personally how I learn best. Now, back to reading Warm Bodies in Italian…

The Infamous Job Hunt

As soon as you hit age twelve, it seems like your awareness of money just triples. Money begins to be viewed as a gateway to more independence. Sometimes, it can be a way of getting what you want. So you start off with lemonade stands, babysitting, or dog walking. Getting a crispy twenty every week can make any kid feel rich. BUT THEN…you hit sixteen years old and twenty bucks a week isn’t exactly going to meet demand. Your parents tell you to find a job, the outcome can be…grievous.

At the moment, only 25% of teens are employed in the United States. I suppose this is not so bad as parts of Europe, where I learned that a teenager holding a job is nearly unheard of. But because I’ve spent the past year applying to jobs off and on, and have yet to get an interview, it does not matter that elsewhere is worse (right at this moment in time; however, once one has the resources, they will become more capable of making elsewhere better). I live in a country where there is a one in four chance for a teenager to receive a job, and that still has yet to happen in my case.

What I have learned is that you must not be discouraged every time you hit a dead end. That is to say, you fill out your application, and drop it off with your resume at a place you are interested in working at. One week later, you follow up with a call, only to find that they aren’t hiring at the moment, or worse, “We’ll call you when we need you”. After this happens countless times, do not take it as a sign to give up. Just print out some more resumes and continue the hunt.

Statistically speaking, it is actually more difficult for a teen from a low income family to get a job because they have fewer connections. When searching for a job, younger people tend to rely on connections through their parents and friends. When one of your parents is out of work, for example, you have less stepping stones toward garnering a paying job. The shrinking availability of work for teens is rather nerve-wracking, especially when someone really needs the money. I need money to pay for gas and car insurance, while someone else needs a job to have food on the table. A lot of the time, applying for jobs is almost like buying lottery tickets, hoping to get the magic numbers.

But despite the state of the economy, we have to keep our heads up. We need to keep applying, reapplying, finding new places to apply. While waiting for a job offer, build up your resume with volunteer work and internships. Or these are all the things I keep telling myself as I hunt down my first job. But one thing is for sure, job hunting is in no way simple or some easy step by step process. Anything worthwhile requires some amount of work, and that amount is certainly not appealing in some cases. The key to a successful job hunt is perseverance; that I can say for sure.