On January 16th, 2016, I made the bold move to create a language blog called Switching Languages. Though I had been contemplating about whether or not I would go through with this idea, I convinced myself that it was something that I wanted to do. It has now been 3 years since then and I have no regrets. In fact, I am beyond blessed by all of the love and support that I have received over the years to keep up with this blog. I truly believe that blogging is an art-form that can unite us despite any differences we have.
The main purpose of this post is to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Those of you who have been reading this post have stuck with me, even when I doubted myself, or lost inspiration to write more for you. Though I was not very active on this blog from 2017-2018, I have taken time to reflect about my purpose and what makes me happiest in life over our long Winter Break. I knew that something was missing in my heart, so after some reflecting, I realized that it was this very blog that could fill the void in my heart. As you can see, I am back healthier, stronger, and happier than ever before. Of course, this does not mean that my health is at its very best, but I do know that this year will be my year, as it can and will be yours, too. I have so much exciting content ready for you in the upcoming months, but I am also always willing to take suggestions from you: anything from a language question that has been on your mind for a while to a blog post idea that you would like to see from me this year. As a preview, this year, I will be writing language book reviews, documentary and film reviews, app and podcast reviews, and will be sharing some of my personal experiences about the benefits of majoring and minoring in languages in college, of the beauty of having a bicultural identity, and about why I love to travel around the world. These are just some of the many ideas that I have ready in store, so make sure to stay tune for them! I will also be traveling extensively this year. In March, I will be going on my graduation trip to Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. I will also be studying abroad in Moscow, Russia for 5 weeks during the summer, which means that I will be sharing some of the highlights of my experience with Russian and Russian culture after taking Russian for 4 years in college. Aside from that, I will also be auditing a Portuguese 200-level course during the Spring 2019 semester, because, as you already know, I could not resist working on my 7th language. Again, thank you for all of your kind messages and for all of the conversations that we have had about the impact that this blog has had on you. I hope that you have gained some knowledge about languages along the way and that you have gotten some inspiration to make languages an integral part of your life. If that has not been the case up until now, then, no worries, 2019 will be filled with many surprises! I am hoping to post every Saturday, so that I post more regularly this year. This semester seems to be looking up for me compared to last semester, so I should have plenty of time to share my passion for languages with all of you. Stay tuned for a language book review this coming Saturday! I am looking forward to growing our Switching Languages community and to seeing what 2019 has in store. Thank you very much for everything! // Muchas gracias por todo! // Merci beaucoup pour tout! // Vielen Dank für alles! // Grazie mille di tutto! // Большое спасибо за всё! // Muito obrigado por tudo!!
Hello, returning and new readers and welcome to my latest
post. Before getting into this week’s post, I wanted to apologize for my lack
of content these past few months. As a second semester sophomore in
college, I wanted take everything in and fully enjoy one of my last semesters on my college's campus before embarking on a journey to study abroad for an entire academic school-year. That being said, it is
now summer, which means that more consistent content will be on its way. I am
planning on posting once a week from now on and am excited to say that I will be writing blog posts about my experiences in France and Italy, in hopes to reach fluency in French and Italian, so make sure to stay tuned for them.
“Testing one two, one two, yeah, not one, but two, como tú. You know it’s true. Dos idiomas son más and it’s getting
big, we’re reaching critical mass. Nuestro mundo de dos mundos será el mundo.
When mundane is something unknown and nobody feels alone…”
I have recently been thinking about topic ideas for this
week’s post and have come to a realization about just how much being bilingual
has impacted my life. To this day, I thank my parents for every waking
hour spent with me speaking to me in their mother tongue. I thank them for
their patience, love, and dedication to never give up despite what societal
norms may be thought out to be. I thank them for taking me to music lessons
with a native Spanish speaker, for enrolling me in a bilingual elementary
school, and for prioritizing language classes above everything else. When I say this, I hope to not give anyone the impression
that I was not brought up in a household that valued a well-rounded education,
but rather am thankful for having parents who supported me to take three
foreign languages at my high-school and now two new languages at the college level when nobody else encouraged me to do so. At
my school and in numerous other occasions, being bilingual has been looked down upon, it
has been misrepresented, and, worse yet, has discouraged millions of once
bilingual Americans to give up their mother tongues in order to fit in, or so
they believe.
If you gain anything out of this post, I want you to know
that there are millions of other bilingual and multilingual individuals
out there who have faced some kind of discrimination throughout their lives, but who have persevered despite all odds and any obstacles that may have come their way. In
the society in which we live, it is almost impossible to not have a week go by
without having someone questioning you and your choice to preserve a part of
your culture that you hold so dearly to your heart. I am here with you. I am
here for you if nobody else is to tell you that being bilingual is beautiful.
It is a gift with which you were born, or that you have cultivated with so much
passion that you deserve to share with others and to to the rest of the world. If you
are bilingual, you know that you may not belong neither here nor there, but
rather to at least two different, yet completely unique worlds. As I have
mentioned in another one of my posts, one of my most defining moments growing
up was when I questioned my own identity. At that moment, my mom
reaffirmed my love for both my English (American) and Spanish (Colombian) self
and told me that I was a world citizen and she was right.
As a bilingual, you are prepared with the necessary tools to
have an open mind, an open heart, and most importantly, the ability to
understand others’ thought processes when nobody else can. I am still a firm
believer that the most thought-provoking, deep, and meaningful conversations of
my life have all been when speaking to another person in their native
tongue. Even though we have technology and dictionaries, I have never been able
to replace any of those tools with real human interaction. I will give you a
short anecdote of a recent experience that I had this past semester when
teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to a Salvadorian family. Despite
gaining more experience teaching English and practicing English with the family
with whom I worked, what I learned the most was the beauty that bilingualism
is. My most memorable moments working with them were not when I saw their
improvement in their English-speaking abilities, but rather when they asked me
questions about America, our way of life, and any doubts that they may have had
in their mother tongue. You could tell that any kind of barrier that that had
existed prior to that moment had been completely erased. The mother instantly
lost any kind of physical tension that had prevented her from speaking from the
heart. Those are the moments for which I live.
When other students, or adults ask me what my future career
path will be, I prefer to be transparent and say that I have no idea. On the
other hand, something that I do know is that if I could leave my footprint on
this world by doing one good deed, I would choose to be a mentor, a friend, and
a companion to anyone out there who has been negatively affected by the current
stigma about bilingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism. All of the negativity, the hate, and the hurt that
has brought millions of other bilingual individuals down should be replaced
with a constant source of love and support. My experiences teaching and
mentoring children, adolescents, and adults in Spanish, French, and Italian have
made me become a more tolerant, compassionate, and patient individual. I have
witnessed others about to burst into tears due to fear or confusion of what
was to come, because they simply could not express themselves as fully, or as
transparently as they could in their mother tongues as they could in English.
When nobody else encouraged my friends to continue to pursue a language
full-time, whether if it was through a job, or by declaring a language minor, I
was the friend to lend a helping hand. Whatever your life goal may be, let
the fire and passion within you transform your life vision and dedicate your
life to making that goal become a reality. You are our future. We are our future.
We need more bilingual individuals to share their
compassion, their understanding, and their creativity in order to solve some of
the world’s most complex twenty-first century problems. Mistranslations can
often lead to misinterpretations, tension, and uncertainty instead of mutual
comprehension, a genuine desire to understand other points-of-view, and most
importantly, the incredible ability to reach others’ minds, souls, and hearts.
Being bilingual is a feeling that you cannot describe. It is a way of life like
no other, allowing you to have full communication with family members and
friends around the world with little to no boundaries. I hope that you continue
to share your gift with others and to not be ashamed of who you are: every
living particle that makes up your being, including all of your mother tongues.
If you are interested in reading more of my posts about my bilingualism, make sure to give these previous blog posts a read:
After a few months of reading some of my blog posts, or
perhaps after many years of intensively studying a language, you may be asking yourself
whether or not it is worth your time to continue doing so. That is a question that
I oftentimes get asked, especially because many of my friends think that it
could get confusing switching from one language to the next. I hope to convince
you that learning languages does not only pay off, but that it also makes you a
more well-rounded individual.
1. Getting More Job Opportunities
Although I have never been in the workforce, I have had may
fair share of jobs throughout the years. Due to my ability to not only excel in
my language classrooms, but to also be able to effectively communicate in them,
I was able to tutor in both Spanish and in French, as well as tutor privately at home. I tutored in French 1, 2, and 3, as well as in Spanish 3. Instead
of following the traditional approach of tutoring, I would create study-guides
for my students and would sit one-on-one with them. I would help them review material
at their own pace and would work with them on with vocabulary, pronunciation,
grammar, reading, writing, and speaking. My ultimate goal was not to simply
help them get an A on their next exam, but to make them feel comfortable using
a different set of skills, and to be able to use their target language in the
real world.
Aside from tutoring, I also babysat a younger girl for a few
years and looked after her by playing games with her while only speaking to her
in Spanish. I have also used my languages to have more effective and straight-forward
communication between my parents’ friends, immigrants, minority groups, and children
and I by speaking to them in their native languages. By doing so, I believe
that the most effective relationships can be built, as I do not have to rely as
heavily on translations, which can oftentimes lead to miscommunications,
misinterpretations, or to mistranslations.I hope to utilize my language skills
at an international organization that promotes effective change by giving back
to underprivileged individuals.
2. Friends All Over the World
At just nineteen years old, I can say that I am fortunate enough to have friends in 5 continents in over 20 states and countries thanks to my language studies. I attended an immersion language camp called Concordia
Language Villages in northern Minnesota for 4 years by going to the French,
German, Italian, and Russian camps. By consistently returning to those language
villages, I made friends from around the country, making friendships that will
last a lifetime and that continue to motivate to become a better person and
language learner.
When I was younger, I attended a bilingual elementary school,
which allowed me to meet first-generation classmates from around Latin-America.
My high-school had students host international students through the AFS
exchange program. Through those experiences, my family hosted students from
Thailand and from New Zealand. I also became close friends with students from
Norway, Japan, Malaysia, Tunisia, Argentina, and many other countries. By frequently
participating in my university’s language clubs and tables, I have friends
who are teaching assistants, international students, and other students who
share some of my passions. No matter where my family ends up traveling next, I know
that I will most likely have a connection in most regions of the world.
3.Discovered New Cultures
As the video above says, through my studies, I have learned
how to appreciate individuals who think, believe, and act differently than I do
and that both of my cultures do. Throughout my life, I have had the privilege
of traveling to 5 continents and have friends around the globe, giving me a
more open-minded perspective on cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious
differences among different individuals. I especially enjoy working with
children, immigrants, refugees, and minority groups by helping them feel
welcomed and comfortable living in a new country.
I have already helped Hispanics become accustomed to a new
country by speaking to them in Spanish and by responding to their particular
needs. One of my most memorable experiences was collecting books for
underprivileged Hispanics and bringing them to the children to pick out books
in both Spanish and in English. Although this simple gesture may not seem like
it could have impacted them in big ways, it definitely did. Before distributing
them, I had never realized how lucky I was to be able to afford books, which I believe
are one of the most important tools that children need in order to have equal
access and opportunities to education and beyond their schooling. Because of my
curiosity, I am hard-working and flexible. Whenever a task is presented to me, I know how to assess the situation and think about any kind of sensitivities, such as cultural differences, that the people with whom I am working may have.
Even though I only went in-depth with 3 reasons
why I have found languages to be impactful in my life, the benefits surely outweigh
the cons. Every day when I wake up, I continue to be thankful for all of the
experiences that I have already had and that I will continue to have. All of
these reasons are what ultimately give me drive and motivation to push through
the tough days and not give up on my lifelong goals and dreams.
