Reverting to Your Primary Language.

First off, I am not claiming to be a psychologist, but this what I have experienced in my journey of learning Spanish.

As a Firefighter/Paramedic we encounter people in difficult and often very stressful situations.

Living in Central Florida there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people and many are bilingual. However, while trying to get information from them they will only speak Spanish.

Now, my crew knows I’m learning so they will get frustrated and ask me to talk Spanish. I’m OK with this but I'm still learning and still feel limited on my questions and conversation at this point.

After the call, often the firefighters, paramedics and police officers will complain about how this is the USA and everyone should be able to speak English! We have “ALL” heard this at some point in our life. Well, in my experience most of these people DO speak English. However, in a stressful situation people will normally revert back to their first language, whatever that may be.

You may ask yourself why is this important to me? Well, I feel the same way as a person who learned Spanish first in their life. When I’m put in a situation where I’m forced to speak Spanish I “revert” right back to English. That’s all I knew up until this point.

I cant tell you how many times people would come to me speaking Spanish and I understood 60-75% of what they were asking but I responded back in English or I just said “Lo siento no hablo español”. As students of SpeakSpanish.com we all have our own reasons for learning Spanish and we do not have to be scared, timid, or allow ourselves to be stressed, and revert back to our primary language.

You may be the only person that can communicate in Spanish and people are depending on you.

6 members like this

Comment by Ben Pennington on August 7, 2011 at 10:52pm: great post. whenever i am in a stressful situation here in colombia I tend to revert back to english or speak worse spanish than I am capable of.

Comment by Ricardo Gonzalez on August 8, 2011 at 8:16am: Bryan, thanks for this fantastic observation. Another time when one would expect to struggle with their 2nd language is when they are tired. When you are very tired, you'll have much more difficulty than when you feel fresh. Just another good reason to get enough sleep. Thanks again and keep posting, you're a good writer.

Comment by Christy Blanchford on August 9, 2011 at 12:11pm: As someone in the medical field as well I can attest to Bryan's experience as well. In my case,I revert back to chinese, with that said, when people say this is the USA and we need to speak only english, that is a neanderthal mentality that will only impede our children from competing in a global market that in the future will be more pluralistic and intertwined where multipllicity of languages is not a luxury but a necessity. For a good read George Friedman's next 100 years ( he is a brilliant CIA analyst I have been following for 15 yrs). In it he predicts a rise of a superworld order where speaking Spanish is an imperative as the Latin American countries jump into the superpower realm. ( and where China and Russia and the USA occupy a surprising position).

Comment by Ricardo Gonzalez on August 9, 2011 at 3:41pm: Christy, thanks for the book recommendation. Try to read one a week so I'm going to pick this one up. Do you know on which page / chapter he makes his comments about Spanish? By the way (BTW) if anyone wants to order his book, you can do so here on Amazon.

Comment by Crystal Allen on August 10, 2011 at 3:36am: <3<3 I was wondering if Christy, Ben, or Bryan have ever tried using a practice method of speaking only Spanish on certain days, let's say Saturday. I'm sure you can't adhere to that during normal work days and hours, but I was wondering how that was working for you. This is something I will try to do, especially when I learn more Spanish. Also, I have heard from others to try and think in Spanish as well to become more fluent. I don' know if that works or not, but something I'm willing to give a try Oh also reading Spanish books when I become more fluent. Good luck to everyone with your learning. <3<3

Comment by Christy Blanchford on August 10, 2011 at 6:40am: Ricardo, I will dig out the book later and give you the information

Comment by Ricardo Gonzalez on August 10, 2011 at 8:02am: Crystal, since you're just starting out I would recommend just staying consistent with the program before you and build the language infrastructure at least through mid-intermediate before you worry too much about using your Spanish. Think about a person opening a store -- they need to get their products on the shelf first before they can open or its just an empty space. Same goes here, get your products on the shelf (build the infrastructure through the course) and then after you have sufficienty "products" we can then coach you into the best ways to use and implement your new skill. As for "thinking in Spanish" this is quite a myth and a real stumbling block for many people but the reality is that it takes up to five years living in a native speaking environment to actually truly "think" in the new language. However, old you are, minus two years, is how long you've been thinking in English. You can't superimpose over that very established and ingrained thought process easily or quickly. That's not to say you can't speak and communicate well in Spanish as you can and that's the purpose of this course. Again, your goal needs to be to develop the infrastructure properly first and then we can coach you to the other things; including which books to read, how to develop better comprehension, etc. There is a definite process to all this. Thanks for engaging and if you want more detail on this ask. Others are free to add their thoughts on this but this is such an important, and misunderstood area, that I wanted to make sure we didn't create any confusion or illusions here.

Comment by Crystal Allen on August 10, 2011 at 1:39pm: Thank you Ricardo. That helps a lot.

Comment by Christy Blanchford on August 12, 2011 at 9:38am: Referring togeorge friedman's book the chapter is 2080, The United States, Mexico and the struggle for the Global Heartland

Reverting to Your Primary Language.

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