Why you should learn a second language?

No matter how old you are, learning a new language it´s always a good idea to devote yourself to. It will be difficult, tedious and sometimes exhausting but the reward will excess the effort.

Having gone through the process of learning a new language, I can say it takes effort and a lot of patience, there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning a new language and only dedication and practice are the ingredients to master a language.

I started studying English when I was a kid at school, by the time I turned 17 my level was pretty good but way far from what you would expect after more than 10 years of study. Whilst I was at University I enrolled several language courses that helped me to sharp my grammar notions and increase my vocabulary, but it wasn´t until I went to work to England when I realized the poor level I had. From moment one I struggle to make myself understandable and it was even worse trying to understand native people, with closed accents, speaking what seemed to me a language that wasn´t English, but that was English in fact!!

It took me several weeks to get used to their accent and to feel comfortable when talking in public. If there is something wrong about Spanish people is our self consciousness which make us feel ridiculous when talking in a language we don’t master, but hey, do you know what´s the best way to raise your language level? It starts facing situations that take you out of your comfort zone. It´s as simple as that, you go to the doctor, you open an account at the bank, you start working or you look for accommodation. All these situations will put you on the spot and will make you feel very uncomfortable sometimes; some other times you will even make a fool of yourself, but that´s part of the learning process. And suddenly, one day, you will wake up, you will turn on the TV and you will realize whilst you have your porridge that you don´t need the subtitles anymore, and don´t need to keep concentrating on every single sentence the TV host says. Once you get to that point, I´m afraid you will still have plenty to learn, vocabulary, expressions, slang, fluency and so on to say that you master a language, but at least you will be able to get along on your day to day.

It takes guts to move abroad, you have to be brave to make the decision and go to a different country with a different language, but it will be worth it. You won´t regret it, and even if things don´t go the way you planned, don´t worry, the experience will still be priceless.

Yes, that´s a bit of my personal story. I went to England for 6 months and I ended up staying almost three years!! Now, back in Spain, I keep working on my English (this blog it´s a good example) and still feel like I’m a beginner sometimes!!

In this post I was meant to speak about the advantages you will enjoy if you learn a new language but ended up writing about my personal experience. In the next posts I will get back to this topic and will speak about the new adventure I have recently been involved….learning Norwegian!!