How I taught myself Spanish

Now I’m nothing to brag about when it comes to Espanol (purposely didn’t include an ñ) …but I can somewhat hold down a conversation. It wasn’t always this way though. Although I was born in San Antonio, TX, and had gone through a couple spanish courses as a young child, I couldn’t speak it worth a lick. I was raised in predominantly suburban neighborhoods of which Spanish was less utilized. Most of my family members didn’t speak it. My friends didn’t speak it. I didn’t speak it. I did take Spanish as my language elective in high school and at the university, but once again I don’t feel like I retained much of it. I never traveled abroad, I never really practiced it with my Spanglish buddies, and although I was never against the language and thought it would be great to someday learn it, I just had no motivator.

Fast forward to when I was 12. My mother moved us up to Kansas City. A lot less Spanish up there, especially back in the 1990s, at least in the areas I was in. Fast forward again to when my mom got laid off after September 11th and the family once again moved to North Carolina. It wasn’t until the early 2010s that I would have a major incentive to speak Spanish, at least for where I was originally headed in life. I took over a Radioshack store in North Carolina. The store was far from the city and there were numerous farms surrounding this store’s commercial area. On Sundays bus loads of field workers would come in after working 6 days straight in the fields. Tobacco, corn, soybean, etc… Tilling, planting, harvesting, etc… You know the story. This store had an influx of Spanish speaking migrant workers every early spring, and they stayed for 6 -8 months, until late Octoberish.

If you know Radioshacks old business model it was to push cellular phones, especially “postpaid” or contract phones. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t try to do their customers dirty IMO. Their business plan ended up saturated with competition. Online, buying direct, the big box electronic stores (you know the ones I’m talking about). Competition at every turn, and Radioshack didn’t always have the best prices, although sometimes they did. In the end it was a business plan that spread resources to thin to too many stores across the US in a retail death spiral era. Anyways, I realized that I could sell a LOT of cell phones (albeit prepaid), literally having my salespeople ring up cell phones all day (earning themselves and me bonus commissions) if I could assist them while translating or helping them communicate. I ordered 3 books off of eBay for less than $10 and that included shipping. I went into my bedroom and just studied and studied and studied for weeks. I utilized websites like Burrito Builder (a Spanish game that’s free online!) It took a few weeks before I felt comfortable even acting like I could talk with them. I knew it was going to be rough, but alas I was adventurously crazy enough to just do it.

When they would line up on Sunday morning, it was nothing but GO for 7 hours straight. The lines would never stop. I asked them to please speak slowly (in Spanish). They would help write out words that I didn’t understand. Some were impatient, and it was time consuming, but for most, they were overjoyed to see a gringo like me even attempting to learn their language. Don’t confuse me, they did learn English over that summer, and I learned SOME Spanish, and we helped each other. By the end of the summer most of them had already gotten their phone situations sorted out and their minutes purchased until they went back home down south. Things had quieted back down and would remain “normal” (outside Christmas holiday shopping season) for all other months outside the March to October range. When they would come back into the city near the end of the season, they took pictures of me together with them and sent them back to their families. To them I say,
¡Gracias por tu amistad!