Learning Spanish in real conversation
For much of the time I have been learning Spanish, I have been more comfortable when language gives me a moment to think. Written exercises allow me to search for a word, reconsider a verb, or notice a mistake before anyone else is waiting for the sentence. Conversation asks for something else. Another person is present, the exchange keeps moving, and whatever Spanish I have available has to become useful quickly enough for us to stay connected.
That is one reason the guidance from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages caught my attention. ACTFL describes interpersonal communication as an exchange in which people create and convey meaning through both verbal and nonverbal communication. Its guidance on communicative tasks also places meaning-making ahead of accuracy and encourages linguistic risk-taking. That description fits the waiting room better than any image of fluency I have carried with me, because the woman and I were communicating before either of us had solved the problem of my limited vocabulary.
Gestures were part of the conversation. So were pauses. I relied on context, repeated what I thought I understood, and watched her expression to see whether I was anywhere near the point. She adjusted too. Learning Spanish in that moment involved considerably more than producing correct sentences. It involved remaining available to the exchange long enough for meaning to pass between us.
What competence can make easy to forget
I have spent much of my adult life becoming competent in areas that matter to me. My professional work rests on years of education and experience, and many of the tasks that once required deliberate effort now feel familiar. This week also brought a particularly visible milestone: I completed the final health and wellness coaching session required for eligibility to sit for the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching certification examination. There is a log, a number, and a finished requirement that I can point to.
Learning Spanish as an adult places me in a different position. I am often visibly inexperienced. I know enough to hear some of my errors and not always enough to repair them while I am speaking. Someone may ask me a simple question and discover, within a few seconds, exactly where my vocabulary ends. There is no private rehearsal once the conversation has begun.
I suspect this is one reason adults can become impatient with themselves when learning something new. We live among the products of our earlier practice while forgetting how much clumsiness preceded them. The ease we now experience in familiar work can make beginner status feel like a departure from who we are, even though it is simply the early stage of acquiring another skill. Learning Spanish has been reminding me that competence has a history, and most of that history is made of attempts that did not yet feel competent.
The progress I almost missed
The coaching milestone and the waiting-room conversation happened during the same week, which made the difference between them easy to see. One form of progress arrived with a formal count. I reached 50 sessions and knew that portion of the requirement was complete. The other form appeared in a few minutes of conversation with a woman whose name I still do not know.
If I had measured the Spanish exchange by accuracy alone, I could have found plenty of evidence that I have more to learn. I missed words. I answered slowly. I understood several things after the moment for an easy response had already passed. I also stayed in the conversation, accepted help without withdrawing from the exchange, and noticed that another person had already learned something about me simply because we had been encountering one another week after week.
That last part stayed with me. She had noticed that I usually stand. I had noticed that she is often there. A small relationship had been forming through repeated contact even while our spoken communication remained limited. Learning Spanish was happening inside that relationship, rather than apart from it. The language was serving an ordinary human purpose long before I could use it with ease.
Being seen while I am still learning
Living in México gives me regular opportunities to practice this. People speak to me in stores and restaurants, in elevators, and in medical offices. Sometimes I understand immediately. At other times I need repetition or a gesture. I have written elsewhere about how making a life in México has changed my sense of home, and language is part of that experience because it determines how much of an ordinary day I can enter without retreating into English.
The change I notice now is less about vocabulary than willingness. Earlier in this process, the awareness of making mistakes could pull my attention away from the person speaking with me. I would become occupied with the Spanish itself. Lately I have been more able to remain with the person while the language is imperfect. That may be one of the more useful changes learning Spanish has given me so far.
There is a connection here with the kind of change I explored in A Life Aligned. A new capacity often becomes visible in behavior before it feels established internally. We do something a little differently, then discover afterward that our response has changed. In the waiting room, I did not feel fluent or especially confident. I simply stayed, and only later recognized that staying had once been the harder part.
A different way to notice learning Spanish
I still value the formal signs of progress. I want more vocabulary and better comprehension, and I want the kind of grammatical control that makes conversation easier for both people. At the same time, I am learning to notice evidence that a workbook cannot record. I answer before the sentence feels fully assembled. I ask someone to repeat herself and remain present for the answer. I make a mistake, hear it, and continue.
Those moments are beginning to change what learning Spanish means to me. The goal remains greater ability with the language. The daily practice is participation. Each ordinary exchange gives me another opportunity to discover what I can already do and what still needs time.
Eventually my friend finished his appointment. The woman and I said goodbye and went on with our day. Nothing dramatic happened, and that is part of why I want to remember it. Progress can arrive with a certificate, an examination date, or a completed requirement. It can also arrive when someone offers you the chair beside her and you remain there long enough to have the conversation you are still learning how to have.
I find myself wondering where this may be true elsewhere in life. What are you learning now that still feels awkward from the inside, and what evidence might already exist that you are becoming more able to stay with it?
With care,
Mark
Writing from home in Querétaro