Wednesday, September 16, 2020

My experience with Spanish (Part 2)



This is a follow-up to a blog post from 2014. (For the earlier post, click here.)

I freely admit that I'm not a native speaker of Spanish, but my Spanish is not bad by Gringo standards. I have tried hard to learn the language in my adulthood, and improve it along the way. I have talked in a previous blog post about my taking college Spanish classes, watching movies with Spanish subtitles, reading scriptures in Spanish, and attending Spanish-language church services. In this blog post, I will try to update what I said earlier, and give some additional comments on Spanish endeavors that I have undertaken since then.


The church building where I attended Spanish-language church services in Prescott, Arizona

Doing missionary work for my church, with local Spanish speakers

I should preface this by openly disclosing what faith I belong to, for any who may be curious about it. Thus, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In this prior blog post, I mentioned briefly that I had attended Spanish-language church services for my church. I continued to do so for some time afterwards, and this definitely helped me to improve my Spanish. But the local Spanish-speaking congregation actually asked me to serve as their mission leader as well. This basically meant that I would be overseeing Spanish-language proselyting in the area, and working with the full-time missionaries that were assigned to my own congregation. This meant that I would accompany the missionaries on their visits with some local Hispanic “investigators” – the word that my faith uses for those who are investigating the church, in order to make an informed decision about whether or not to join it. (Meetings with missionaries are entirely non-committal, I might add.) But I am told that it was helpful to the full-time missionaries to be accompanied by someone else – someone who was not wearing a white shirt and tie, as they were.


The room where our Spanish congregation then had some of its classes

An anecdote from my days as a mission leader for my congregation

At the times when the full-time missionaries could not think of a particular Spanish word that they needed, I was sometimes able to supply the missing word that they were looking for. For example, when one missionary tried to speak of “bringing people into Christ's fold” (or some similar phrase using the word “fold”), he could not think of the Spanish word for this kind of “fold.” In this context, the English word “fold” literally translates to “a pen or enclosure in a field where livestock, especially sheep, can be kept.” But it also has the more metaphorical meaning of “a group or community, especially when perceived as the locus of a particular set of aims and values” (according to the accessible Google definition). Specifically, it here meant the “community of the church,” with the “Good Shepherd” protecting the sheep of His “fold” from disaster – a metaphor of Christ's role as the Good Shepherd. The Spanish word for this kind of “fold,” in case you're wondering, is “rebaño” – and it includes all of these meanings, of both the literal and metaphorical kinds (much like its English counterpart). I was thus proud of myself when I was able to supply the word “rebaño” during this lesson, particularly given that the missionary who was serving with me there had actually grown up in a Spanish-speaking household. His Spanish was still far superior to mine, I should acknowledge publicly, perhaps partially because I never grew up in a Spanish-speaking household. Nonetheless, my vocabulary was good enough to be helpful to him at times.


A textbook about Spanish linguistics that I read

Reading things in the original Spanish, including one work by a native Spanish speaker

I mentioned in this prior blog post that I had read the New Testament, Pearl of Great Price, and Book of Mormon in Spanish. This was probably why I was able to supply the word “rebaño” during this particular missionary lesson (and other words in lessons like it). But the Spanish versions of these scriptural works are all in translation, so I had not yet enjoyed the experience of reading a work in the original Spanish. Thus, I got myself a copy of “El español a través de la lingüística: Preguntas y respuestas” (“Spanish through Linguistics: Questions and Answers”). This book had indeed been originally written in Spanish, and contained useful essays about the linguistics of Spanish (and linguistics more generally at times). They talked about topics ranging from language learning, to the psychology of language, to the different dialects of Spanish. These were useful essays, but the book was largely written by Gringos for Gringos. It was still a useful book, and I'm still glad that I read it. But I also wanted to read at least one book by a native speaker of the language, and read that book in its original Spanish. I actually tried “Don Quijote” (“Don Quixote”) for this purpose, but found that this book was not a good fit for me, since literature is not really my thing (and I admit this freely). Thus, I read Rafael Lapesa's “Historia de la lengua española” (“History of the Spanish Language”) in the original Spanish. This book had actually been written in 1942, with updates to it done as late as 1981. But most importantly, it was written by a native Spanish speaker – a scholar from Spain, by the name of Rafael Lapesa. This was a good work, and helped me to better appreciate the history of the Spanish language. Since it was written in Spanish, it was also an excellent choice for my language practice, and has improved my Spanish in this way as well.


A textbook that I read about the history of the Spanish language

Using my Spanish on the job as a math tutor, in tutoring Hispanic students about math

I should preface this next part by telling you something about my occupation. I am a math tutor by profession, and spend my professional life teaching math. I do most of this in English, but I have occasionally had Hispanic students who are native Spanish speakers. Some of them prefer to do the tutoring entirely in English, but others prefer to have (at least some of) the tutoring be in Spanish. Since their math classes are in English, most of them want to know the English vocabulary words that will help them to navigate through their class. But sometimes, it's hard to learn math in a foreign language, and an explanation in their native language is sometimes necessary for them. Thus, I sometimes give them these needed explanations in Spanish, when the English explanations are particularly difficult for them. This has helped me to feel that my study of Spanish has “paid off” for me in some way. Not every semester allows me to do this, since I have some semesters where all of my students are native English speakers (pity about that). But I always rejoice when one of my students prefers to speak some Spanish, because it allows me the opportunity to use the Spanish that I have learned in the past.


The outside of the building where I work

Reading a hard book in Spanish translation, since the endeavors above

When I finished reading Rafael Lapesa's “Historia de la lengua española” (or “History of the Spanish Language”) in the original Spanish, I needed something else to practice my Spanish. As mentioned earlier, I had wanted to read at least one work in the original Spanish, by a native speaker of the language. But once I had attained this goal, I was content to read Spanish translations of interesting religious works, as an alternative way of practicing my Spanish. I thus got a Spanish copy of “Jesus the Christ” (Spanish “Jesús el Cristo”) by James E. Talmage, which has a reputation for being somewhat hard to read (at least in my church, where the book nonetheless enjoys a loyal following). It's the kind of work that makes people want to have a dictionary with them, to help them to decipher the harder words. I thus figured that if I could handle this particular work in Spanish translation, that would be a real test of my Spanish. I wanted to feel that my Spanish was fairly advanced, and that I could do just about anything with it. Thus, this has been a good project for me so far, and may continue to be such for years to come.


James E. Talmage, a late apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the author of the book mentioned above

Plans for my future use of Spanish, and why I'm glad that I learned Spanish

When I finish this project, I may one day return to reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish, so that I can combine my study of the scriptures with my passion for learning (and practicing) languages. For the Bible, I would much prefer to read the two testaments in the original Hebrew and Greek, if I am ever able to do so. (And I've been learning Greek for many years now, so this is actually a real possibility for me.) But I'll always be glad that I learned Spanish, too, because it has given me access to linguistics and history in the original. It has helped me as a missionary for my church, and as an employee for my school. And it may yet help me to do many other useful things, by opening up doors to me that would probably be closed to me otherwise. It's been a great hobby for me, and has blessed my professional life in (at least some) ways. I hope that I will have continued opportunities to practice my Spanish in the future.

The post that you just read is a follow-up to a blog post from 2014. (For this earlier post, click here.)

If you liked this post, you might also like:







Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)