So yesterday, Wednesday, I decided to try a little experiment. The goal of this experiment: not use English for a whole day. No writing in English, no reading in English, no music in English, no TV in English, no conversing in English. In theory idea was pretty strong. I am in another country trying to learn the language and the best way to do this is to fully immerse myself. However, even though I am in a different country, this feat presented itself as almost impossible. Before I continue let me just say, I failed for sure. However, it wasn't a failure of temptation. I didn't give in and check my Facebook, or read ESPN, or talk to my friends on my phone, or Skype my family--it was just just impossible to not stumble upon English when the United States have so much influence on everything down here.
There's an interesting dynamic with the people here and I that goes like this--they translate words that they know into English for me and words that they don't know they don't do anything with. Which seems pretty normal. Except the fact that the stuff I know how to say is the stuff they are translating for me and the things I need help with I am not getting any help with. For example someone will come up to me and ask me where I am from in Spanish and then translate it into English. I may not be fluent but I am fairly decent with my Spanish…I can understand that. My first failure of the English experiment came when my gym teacher translated our simple conversations that I understood perfectly into English. I tried to explain to him that I did not want help with the translations but I think it was just fun for him so he continued to do it.
My second failure came in two different parts of the day, and this failure was the music. They only listen to English music here and I do not understand why. For me it's a real turn off when I can't understand what I am listening to, trust me…it sucks. However, not only do people love listening to music they can't understand but they are incredibly good at memorizing lyrics. They know the lyrics and not the context, its very fascinating. Staying on this subject, I went to the gym for an hour after morning classes and I forgot my iPod--big mistake. The music that was on the speakers was only English music, it was horrible! I almost made a request to change it but then I realized how ridiculous of a request that was. For an hour I was only exposed to English music, a noiseless replay of Nadal's poundage on Djokovic, and pain in my shoulders. The second part of the music failure came in the night time. At 7 I had a chorus performance at a theater in town for the Anniversary of a local university. We were the last performers so there we had two hours to wait in a warmup room in our little chorus outfits. During this time of course everybody sang popular songs acapella together. And of course every song was in English. Then, a chorus member started playing Adele's Someone Like You on the piano in my key. How am I supposed to pass up on that? Next it was performance time! Two of our songs were in English, crap.
Failure number three was a pretty obvious one, English class. I actually considered skipping class but I realized that was just pushing it and going to class was not going to harm my Spanish dramatically.
At the end of the day I did some reflection on what I thought about this experiment. At first I really looked at it as a failure. I didn't use my phone or computer like I said and I did my very best to stay away from my origins but it was darned near impossible. Although, I think it is very telling that the United States has pretty much influenced every aspect of life down here. So with this day finished and ready to be put to sleep I basically said that its not even worth trying again because of the English every where I go. Waking up this morning, I felt the complete opposite. I went to school today and had one of the best days of school yet. I understood almost all my classes. When I say I understood my classes, I am talking contributing and really engaged in almost everything. It was the first time I have felt this way. Then there was the talking, I was talking MUCH better today than I was in the past. It was like a whole week had past. I have no idea if this was coincidence but I couldn't be happier right now so in reality, I don't really care. From this point on, once a week I will leave English in the US and disconnect from my native language completely--or I will at least try.
(Written on Thursday, Sept. 12)
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