My new Spanish teacher has a guitar
Charlotte Smith is a storyteller and unapologetic observer of life in Mexico, who writes about the country as she experiences it - with curiosity, a healthy dose of skepticism, and genuine affection. From people and places to the strange, funny, and sometimes complicated moments of everyday life, Charlotte believes there’s a story almost everywhere if you stop long enough to notice it.
I’ve lived in Mexico for six years now, which feels like long enough that I should probably stop blaming my lack of Spanish on the fact that I’m still learning. Except there’s a problem!
I live in an area of Mexico that’s highly tourist-centric. There are plenty of English speakers around, and apparently I’ve become one of the people who can be called upon to provide free English conversation practice at any given moment. At the grocery store. At a restaurant. When someone comes to the house to fix the internet. When a utility company sends someone out because something has stopped working, which is usually when I’m busy and at my least interested in conducting a language lesson.
I’ll start speaking Spanish and, somewhere along the way, the person I’m talking to will look at me and ask, “Can you speak English, please?”
And I know what comes next. They want and need to practice.
“It helps us with our jobs,” they’ll tell me. “So many people won’t speak Spanish.”
And, I get it. I really do. I’m an English speaker living in Mexico. If I were working somewhere where English was useful, I’d probably want to practise it, too. So I switch. And just like that, another perfectly good opportunity for me to have a full-blown Spanish conversation disappears.
This isn’t a complaint about Mexicans speaking English. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m constantly impressed by how many people here speak another language, sometimes extremely well, because they’ve had to learn it for work. But there’s something slightly comical and frustrating about living in a Spanish-speaking country and repeatedly being offered the opportunity to speak English.
So, after six years, I’ve decided enough is enough!! I am going to learn Spanish! Properly. Or at least I’m going to give it a much more serious shot than I’ve been giving it.
I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve even been in a semi-committed relationship with Duolingo. That relationship serves a purpose, and I’m not knocking it. There’s something to be said for learning vocabulary in small bites, particularly when you’re starting out. But those little reminders!! Oh, I hate those reminders!
Why must it tell me in an increasingly passive-aggressive way that I haven’t practised my Spanish today. That doesn’t make me feel a stronger bond. Quite the opposite, it makes me want to throw my phone across the room. I know, Duolingo. I know. I’m disappointing you.
I know!!
So, we’re taking a break so I can stop trying to make learning Spanish feel like homework. Instead, I’ve started listening to it. And I am absolutely loving it.
Music. That’s my new Spanish teacher.
Old songs. New songs. Songs I understand. Songs I only partly understand. Songs that make me happy. Songs that make me sad. Songs that I have no idea what they’re about but somehow find myself singing along with anyway. I’m addicted. And, much to my surprise, it’s working. I’m beginning to recognise words without translating them first, and I’m hearing phrases I’ve heard a hundred times before and suddenly understanding what they mean. I’m catching little pieces of conversations, and I’m starting to notice something else.
Spanish has rhythm. Of course I knew that in the abstract. I’ve been surrounded by Spanish for six years. But listening to music has made me actually hear it. The way words run together.
The way certain sounds get swallowed or softened. The way a sentence can sound completely different when it’s spoken quickly by someone who has no idea you are still mentally translating every third word.
That last part is perhaps the most important to me. Because one of the hardest things about me learning a language as an adult isn’t necessarily learning the words. It’s getting my brain to stop panicking when I don’t understand every single one of them. I used to think that if I couldn’t understand an entire sentence, I hadn’t understood anything. Now I’m realising that’s not true.
Sometimes I understand five words out of ten. Then six. Then seven. And then suddenly I know what the person is talking about. That feels like real progress!
And maybe music works because I’m not sitting there thinking, I am now going to learn Spanish. I’m just listening. I’m driving and listening. I’m cooking and listening. I’m sitting outside with the dogs and listening. And I’m singing. Loudly!!
With pronunciation that is, at best, still a work in progress, but I’m singing. And as a professional singer who hasn’t taken to a stage in far too long, that’s wonderful for me. And it’s liberating to sing in a language you don’t completely understand. You can get the words wrong with enormous confidence because, frankly, you’re already committed.
Once the song gets going, there’s no stopping me, and I have absolutely no idea what my neighbours think. Actually, I probably do!!
But I’m singing in Spanish, and six years into living in Mexico, I’m going to count that as progress. There’s no little green owl staring at me and no daily streak to protect. There’s no lesson I’ve failed to complete. There’s just Spanish. Lots and lots of Spanish.
And I’m beginning to wonder if this is what I should have been doing all along.
There’s something about hearing a language through music that feels different from hearing it in an audio textbook. That audio will give you the correct answer, but people don’t. People speak quickly. They mumble and use slang. They leave words out or change their minds halfway through a sentence. They laugh. They talk over one another. They speak like actual human beings should. And that’s the Spanish I want. Not the Spanish where I can successfully order a coffee and congratulate myself.
I want the Spanish where I can sit at a table and actually participate in the conversation. I want to understand the joke before everyone else laughs and I have to look it up. I want to be able to ask a question and not immediately wonder whether I’ve accidentally asked someone where their grandmother keeps her underwear.
I want to have conversations with people here without their automatically deciding that English would be easier. I know that’s going to take time. Six years in, I’m realistic enough to know I’m not suddenly going to wake up fluent because I’ve discovered Spotify. But something has changed, and I’m enjoying the process.
For years, learning Spanish felt like something I should be doing because I live in Mexico. Now it feels like something I want to do because I live in Mexico.
I came here six years ago and thought I would pick it up along the way. Some people do, but I didn’t. Partly because I haven’t needed to. Partly because I live in a place where English is readily available.
Partly because every time I’ve tried to practise, someone has quite reasonably wanted to practice English with me. Partly because learning another language at 55 isn’t exactly the same as learning one at 15. But I’m not giving myself an excuse anymore, I’m listening. I’m learning. And I’m getting better.
So, if you happen to see me walking around Mexico with my headphones on, I’m not ignoring you. I’m just doing my homework. Because I finally found a way of doing it that doesn’t feel like homework at all.
And if you hear someone singing Spanish loudly, confidently, and with pronunciation that may or may not resemble the actual words being sung, well…there’s a pretty good chance it’s me.
But at least I’m singing again!