Saturday, July 16, 2016

Ha-BLAS es-PAN-ol?



The three of us are pretty outgoing people. We're the type of people to talk to everyone we meet, from the taxi driver on our way to the hospital to the waitress serving us lunch. And, I think that's what's made this language thing so much harder than expected.

After spending two years in Mexico, Mark is fluent in Spanish. Jeremy and I, on the other hand, had a lot more to learn. Jeremy took two years in middle school and I took Spanish through middle school until 10th grade. To put it lightly, it had been a very very long time since either of us had seriously studied Spanish. I was actually amazed by what came back, who knew so much from sophomore year of high school actually stuck! I was never especially good at Spanish then, which made this even more surprising.

When I got to Cuenca, I knew for a fact that I wanted to take Spanish classes. At $10/hour for a private class, I figured it was well worth it, in order to best accelerate the learning process. Whenever interacting with Dr. Salamea and the other LATE students, we spoke solely in Spanish - something I really appreciated. It forced us to get into Spanish and taught us a lot of medical Spanish.

By the end of this trip, I would say that I'm now at an intermediate level of Spanish. I can understand what people are saying and I can say whatever I need to say (I've gotten really good at word origami - rephrasing my sentences whenever I don't know a word to best utilize my current vocabulary). That's where the problem is, though. For me, it's been really hard to get to know people well when you can't joke with them, and when you can't have conversations at a deeper level than your average daily chatter. There's a difference between being capable of communication and being comfortable with using word play and irony.

I feel like it's generally believed that your personality is an inherent part of who you are. But here, I've found the opposite - I actually think that talking in a different language can actually change your personality. Mark and Jeremy watched me as I spoke with some Chinese tourists in Cantonese. They said that my whole body language changed when I spoke in Cantonese, and my demeanor did too. In Spanish, I'm much quieter, whereas for Mark, it's the opposite, and he's actually much more outgoing in Spanish! At the end of the day, it's actually exhausting to have done nothing but speak in Spanish. Your mind is cranking nonstop and constantly on the move. It made me less likely to strike up conversations with random strangers, because I just got tired.

This was really eye opening. Growing up speaking English in an English speaking country, I never really seriously considered language barriers on social relationships. I knew they were an issue when someone couldn't express what they needed, like medical help in a hospital or were lost and needed directions. But, your confidence in your language abilities can also affect so much. My parents immigrated to the US in their twenties. They're fluent in English, give or take an Asian accent, but they've never chosen to speak English at home. They feel more comfortable when speaking Chinese, and now I can better appreciate a sense of why. It's difficult to get the same easy going joking going on in a foreign language. So many jokes and conversations revolve around word manipulation (puns, etc), lingo, and cultural references specific to the area.

Despite acknowledging this hurdle, I feel like we've gotten to really know our LATE friends. They've taken us to soccer games, hiking, and many more adventures. One of my favorite memories was when we went hiking with Caro, one of the LATE students we worked with. We took a bus around town to get to Giron, where we then walked 6km alongside some beautiful countryside before finally getting to start our hike (or should i call it a vertical rock scramble) up along the side of a waterfall. We spoke Spanish the whole day, and it was great to get to spend the whole day with her, away from the pressures of time and school. No matter the country, med school is the same. We joked about our classes, how stressful studying is, what we want to do with our futures, etc. (funnily enough, she taught us the word "maton"...which literally translates to gunner - some things just don't change!)

For me, language was a huge part of this trip. Getting a chance to learn Spanish (especially medical Spanish) better is a great skill to have. Furthermore, the international perspective on the familiarity of language is enlightening.

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