Are You Nervous Talking to Native Spanish Speakers? ♫ 35

¡ Bienvenidos! Welcome to the learn Spanish Con Salsa Podcast, the show for Spanish learners that love music, travel and culture. Close your grammar textbooks, shutdown the language apps and open your ears to how Spanish is spoken in the real world. Let us show you how to go from beginner to bilingual. Here is your host certified Language Coach, Tamara Marie!

Hola,¿Cómo están? Espero que estén bien, bienvenidos al espisodio treinta y cinco, Welcome to episode 35 of the Learn Spanish con salsa Podcast. Before we get started, I want to remind you that time is running out to sign up for our free workshop to help you improve your Spanish listening skills. If you struggle to understand native Spanish speakers because they just talk way too fast and it's hard for you to keep up, this workshop is definitely for you. If you want some practical tips you can use to improve your listening comprehension in Spanish, sign up for our free workshop learnspanishconsalsa.com/listen, that's learnspanishconsalsa.com/listen.

This is the last week to sign up. So make sure you register now so you can get access to this free three-part workshop and finally started hearing and understanding Spanish better. Part one and part two of the workshop have already been released and I want to thank everyone that's been participating so far, thank you for all of your emails and for your comments. I'm really glad to know that you're getting something out of this and you're having some light bulb moments, right? And also some practical things that you can do to start to change the way that you're studying and learning Spanish so you can really improve your listening skills. Okay, so this is my last reminder. If you're interested in really getting good at hearing and understanding native Spanish speakers, just register at learnspanishconsalsa.com/listen.

Now, I'm really excited to share this conversation with you. Now, I know for me, when I set a goal, the first thing I do is look for someone else who's already achieved the goal that I'm working towards. It helps me come up with ideas on how I should move forward. And it also motivates me to keep going or even to just get started. If there's something I've been thinking about doing for a while, but I've been putting it off for one reason or another, maybe procrastinating a little bit. Sometimes hearing from someone else who's already got to where I'm trying to get to really helps me. So in that spirit, in this episode, I'll be sharing a conversation with Kayla. She joined the Spanish con salsa community and she started our Learn Spanish with music course when we first got started a few years ago. Now what really surprised me about story initially is that she's from a Spanish speaking family. But it still took her years before she committed herself to speak Spanish fluently. Now we covered so many topics in this conversation from how it feels to be Latino and not speaking Spanish, to discrimination, getting over, being nervous when you're speaking to native Spanish speakers.

And we also talked about whether introverts or extroverts are better language learners. So kind of that age old question about is it better to be an introvert or extrovert? But we talk about it specifically as it relates to both learning Spanish and speaking Spanish. And we talk about a whole lot more than that. So this is just part one of a two part conversation. I'll be sharing the next half of our talk next week. But in this episode you'll hear what finally pushed Kayla to go from someone who kept saying, I'll be fluent in Spanish one day and promising her family that she would learn the language to finally making real progress and getting comfortable talking to native Spanish speakers. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Kayla and that you're inspired and you get some useful information that can help you at your journey towards Spanish fluency yourself. A ll r ight, so here is part one of our conversation with Kayla.

Kayla, welcome to the Learn Spanish con Salsa Podcast.

¡ Hola!

First, just tell us a little bit about you, tell us where you're from and what made you want to become fluent in Spanish.

Okay. Well, I was born in F lorida. I come from a military background, so my father was active duty in the air force and at the age of three months my dad got stationed to England and that is where I was raised. I was raised in England, like in the air force sp ace. And I left England once I got married at the age of 25, so from England, then to Germany for four years and then here in the United States. And this is my first time living here and I've only been living here for three years and I live in Illinois right now and also still affiliated with the military here.

Okay, cool. So it sounds like you've traveled around a bit. So what is it that made you want to learn Spanish? What made you say, I really want to be fluent in Spanish? Since you've been in England and Germany, those aren't places really known for, you know, having a lot of Spanish speakers. So what is it about Spanish that made you want to really learn it?

Well, I come from a Cuban American background. All of my family that's been in Florida, majority of them all speak Spanish fluently. My grandparents, my uncle, my aunt, some of my cousins. So it's something that I've always wanted to, I've always wanted to learn how to speak Spanish. Even in the military community I was always around majority a lot of Puerto Ricans.

A lot of my close friends are Puerto Rican and also now as an adult, from England a nd Germany, a lot of Latinos were on the base. They have like Latino nights on the air force base. L atino, you know, when it's, like September when they have Hispanic heritage month. We just had like a big Latino community in the military and a lot of people did speak Spanish and, you know, when they come and they speak to you. W hen they ask where you are from and, you know, just speaking, I'm just like, man, I need to learn Spanish.

It's something I'll always wanted to learn since high school. And I just never kept with it. My parents only spoke it to me and my brother and my sister. Like if they got upset but never fluently, you know, all of a sudden.

That was the angry language. And troubling. That's the only time I heard it in my household. And I used to always ask my mother and my father, how come we never spoke it regularly? And my parents were like, again, living overseas, there weren't a lot of people that spoke Spanish, so English, which is English. So I was like, okay, I understand. But every time we would visit, whether it was for Christmas or during the summer, you know, everyone's speaking Spanish, my grandparents and everything. And I be like, Oh, what did you just say? And my grandparents would be like, promise you, promise me you'll learn Spanish, you need to learn Spanish.

So it's something that I just wanted to continue doing. And also, you know, for my kids too. My husband, he comes from a Puerto Rican background. He doesn't know Spanish either. Being raised in Ohio and again, his parents not teaching him Spanish because they were i n t he, there was not a Latino community around them. So it's just very important for me, not only my background but just to know the language to teach to my children. An d i t's just something that I've always had, always had a passion of learning. Just that, just the language always have.

You know, it's really interesting you mentioned you and your husband both having b ackground Cuban and Puerto Rican, but then still not speaking Spanish. And I think, s ome people just assume that if your parents speak the language that you'll automatically learn it gr owing up. And I know that there are people who are Latino but don't speak Spanish. So is that, I guess, how does it feel like for you and even from your husband's perspective, like how do you feel when you're interacting with family? Is there a stigma around not knowing the language or is it just accepted because your parents wanted you to speak English properly and they didn't really emphasize Spanish? How do you, how do you kind of feel about that sort of in your family dynamic?

For me, I mean, i n my situation I guess like family and people understand. C ause when I say, Oh I was raised in England, they w ere like, Oh there's no Latinos there, you know, so they understand why I wouldn't speak it. But then I get some people again saying it just goes back and forth. W ell how can you be, you know, Cuban and you're not, you know, you don't know Spanish. And again, I have to explain, I was raised in England.

I think i f I was r aised i n the United States o r especially Florida, close to my family, it w ould h ave been different for me. It's, that's just how I say, you know, I just wasn't raised around the Latino culture. Being in England, everyone spoke English. As far as my husband. For him, I don't know, he feels different. He, he's embarrassed about it b ecause again, g oing i nto Puerto Rico and w e go there to visit family, e veryone speaking Spanish, even his cousins who were raised in the United States and not in like, he has cousins that were raised in Kansas and his a unt spoke fluent Spanish to his cousins, both of them and they know Spanish fluently.

And the other parent, you know, was from an American background. So for my husband, I guess holds that against my mother and father in law. Kind of embarrassed about it because with his name being, you know, Roberto and some people are like, you don't say your name, you don't say your full name in Spanish. You know, he comes across another Latino that works here or something, you know, they'll be like" Roberto", you know, and he's just like Roberto.

And then they're like, how come you pronounce your name like that? He can't pronounce it, he can't pronounce it. S o f or him it's embarrassing. But again, his parents e xplained to him there was a lot of racism, w here they live. Because they did live in a white community and they got called the N word. They got called, sick and a ll types that there was a lot of racism in his school to the point where he even changed his name in school to R obbie instead of Roberto because. Yeah. He got bullied quite a bit.

Yeah. It's interesting too, because I think that's one thing that people don't get. Like now it's like, you know, people are trying to learn languages and be more accepting of other cultures and multiculturalism in general. Everyone isn't. But at least now, I think things are better than they were maybe 30 40 years ago. But at that time, you know, parents had a motivation for not wanting their children to speak Spanish. Like they would say, well I don't want you to have an accent. Right. So it'd be like only speak English. We moved here so t hat you c an learn English. Right.

So I think that in hindsight, I'm sure like the way your husband's looking at it is,"Wow, I really wish I would've had this skill". But then I can also see sort of how is it an immigrant family or parents coming here. You want the best for your children. And if you think that they'll get better opportunities without having the same stigma that you have. I definitely could see that. So it's really interesting how things have have changed for the better. Really. So, so then let's talk about them for you. So you had the background, you kind of knew you wanted to connect with your family. I know you also friends t hat speak Spanish. So what was it that made you go from just sort of being around the culture and going, wow, I really, you know, need to learn that a t one day to finally making the decision that Hey, I'm g oing t o actually get serious about this and I'm going to become fluent in Spanish. Like, what changed for you that you were able to make that decision a nd move forward? For me, what was like,"okay, I really need to learn Spanish" was going back and forth to Florida, visiting my family until the point where my family, I kept making promises that I'm going to learn Spanish, I'm gonna learn Spanish because I never understood what the conversation was about when everyone was around me talking and laughing and it was kinda like, you know, I really want to understand what they were saying and join in the conversation. But I couldn't. Because I didn't understand anything. And so just people, friends, family saying just learn, just learn, just learn Spanish. To the point where I was on the computer, I'm buying books from, you know, the libraries, the Spanish books, Spanish dictionary again, my apps, downloading them to my phone and just trying to study. But I felt like I still didn't get anywhere because I was doing it on my own. I wasn't pronouncing the words right or anything like that. So it was hard. It was a struggle, but I've h ad like tons of books, like 5 0 books in Spanish. I didn't learn with them, yeah. I think you have set the record. You know, especially being overseas on Amazon constantly just ordering books coming in the mail. And they're just sitting there. I would like to skim through them. Okay. That we're means that, but it still didn't help with my, you know, me being able to have a conversation in Spanish with anyone. So it was a frustration and then I would just give up. Put the book down and not go look at it anymore. And just, yeah.

Sounds like you had the desire, you had the exposure to your family. And I know probably hearing people laughing around you and not knowing what they're saying is probably a huge motivation. I don't know about you, but like that's one of my pet peeves. It's like you want to be in on the joke, but you also l ike, are laughing about me? D id I do something funny? Like what did they s ay? S o that can be a big motivation as well.

So, you said you've got a bunch of books from Amazon, right. And it sounds like that didn't work too well for you because you didn't really make any consistent progress. So then what would you say has really helped you to really make progress with your Spanish? And I know also we can talk a little bit about how music has played a role in your language learning as well. Because I know you're really into a salsa music and other Latin music as well. So talk a little bit about just sort of what shifted, you know, from just like getting all the textbooks and looking at them and kind of given up and coming back to it and not really making progress to like where you were really making progress with Spanish.

Yes. Well, as I said, I didn't make any progress definitely with the books. It wasn't until we moved from Germany back here to the United States, to Illinois. And I w ant t o say probably over a year of living here, I tried to enroll in like a college here that teaches Spanish. But it wasn't the kind of Spanish that I wanted to learn. Like obviously I knew that, especially me being around a lot of P uerto R icans, that the Spanish, I was g onna learn at the university or the college that I was going to go to, I wasn't g onna learn t his slang, it was just g onna be the proper Spanish. So I felt like that wasn't g onna get me anywhere. And then I came across just being on the internet. I do remember coming across Spanish con Salsa and I was just like, Hmm, what is this? I remember looking into it and the first thing that caught my eye was music. Because I listen to Spanish music day in, day out. When I wake up, it's blasting through my house. When I go to sleep, I'm listening to Spanish music like all the time. So when I saw that and I came across a couple of Spanish websites where, you know, you could, um, learn Spanish, but with music I was like, it's perfect cause I'm always listening to music. And so truthfully, Spanish con Salsa is what kept me going. I feel like the reason that my Spanish is better today is because of the Spanish con Salsa website because of the music and you know, because of all the learning tools that are on that website with the verbs and the conversation starters, everything. And it's just helped me. It's definitely just helped me. And also being able to get in groups with people who are also on the Spanish con Salsa website who are trying to learn Spanish. Also just getting into groups and helping people speak Spanish and just feeling comfortable to have conversation with them because you know, you're in the same situation. They're trying to learn also. So just trying to help each other. It's just that nice community on the website. So that is what has pushed me now continue to be consistent and learning my Spanish and I feel like I've come far in the two years I've been on S panish Con S alsa I've definitely come far.

What would you say is the biggest thing that either you noticed or people around you that you've been talking to as you've been learning with the music and working to improve your Spanish and stay consistent? What's the biggest thing that you've noticed? Or like I said, even if someone else that you're talking to notice about how your Spanish has improved?

What I've noticed, which now was a big, big thing for me where I had like, I was very nervous and was speaking Spanish to another person who spoke it fluently. I was just always nervous. I was thinking,"Oh my goodness, I'm going to say the wrong thing to the person and the person's going to be like, what did you just say?" So for me, having a Spanish conversation with another Spanish speak or that was what made me very nervous. And now today, in the last couple of months, I want to say since before the new year, I've got tons and tons of compliments that my Spanish is, very good. And that, they c ould tell, I feel more comfortable now speaking Spanish. Because before I would j ust only say a couple o f words like," h ola,¿Cómo estás?, and then just leave it at that and just listen to the other person talk bu t r eply back in English. But now, since I've just been continuously having conversation practice in Spanish, whether it's with friends, family, or the tutors on Spanish con salsa, it has really, I just got more comfortable. Now it's like I just, if I make a mistake, it doesn't matter. Like, Oh, I made this mistake and then I'll practice, the mistake I made or the word that I said that was incorrect and then just continue and go from there. But that was definitely the big thing for me that I was always nervous to do was to try and sp eak S panish to a stranger, a Spanish speaker.

But now I could go into a Mexican store to go buy some things and just speak to the person at the register in Spanish and it feels good. It feels good now because I don't like to speak in front of like a crowd of people or especially people I don't know. And doing it in another language. For me that was just like, Oh my goodness. But now I could go to another Spanish speaking country and s peak to people in t he airport on the plane i n Spanish. And it just, it just feels so good, because I never thought that that would happen for me. I was always nervous.

I was thinking as you were talking about just having that confidence and being able to talk to people, would you consider yourself more of an outgoing or extroverted person? Would you consider yourself more introverted?

That's a good question. I think I'm a definitely not introverted. So I would, I would think I'm the other, because I'm usually, I don't speak to people on that, like the person that would just start a conversation right away. I would wait for the person to say something to me. But I f elt like I've outgrown that now in the last couple of months and now I just go start conversations with people.

The reason why I ask that is because I know, there's some people who feel like, there's a lot of talk about being introverted, extroverted and how that impacts language learning. And I've heard some people say that, you have to be an extrovert to learn a language or extroverts are more successful at learning languages. But it seems to me that your ability to really get comfortable with speaking Spanish have more to do with your confidence level more than whether or not you were b ecause even your personality in English might be different than your personality an d S panish. Cause you've got to relearn like how do you tell a joke or how do you communicate this certain nuance that an English yo u i s second nature to you. But in Spanish yo u're l ike, Oh, how do I say that? And here's a little bit of a bias towards people saying, Oh you have to be an extrovert. But I think that, at least for me, because I consider myself an introvert, that when you know what you want to say and you have a purpose for having a conversation, you're not nervous because you have a reason to be having the conversation and you know what you're going to say. And you also know that you can handle it. Right. And I think a lot of what holds people back is, what if they say something I don't understand and then I just look stupid. Right?

I hope you're enjoying the conversation with Kayla so far. In the second half of our conversation we'll talk about how she went from responding in English to finally gaining the confidence to speak Spanish with other Spanish speakers. So if you're struggling with really getting comfortable talking to native Spanish speakers, you don't want to miss next week's episode. We also talk about the role of both travel and music in her language learning and how she's been able to consistently make progress.

So if you're not already subscribed, make sure you hit that subscribe button right now so you'll have access to the next episode as soon as it's released. And if you're already a listener and you found the podcast useful, please leave us a rating and review in iTunes, por favor. That helps other Spanish learners find the podcast and let us know how we're doing. So we've made it really easy for you. You just have to click on the link in the show description to leave a review on iTunes. And for the month of September to give you a little extra motivation. I'm giving away a free copy of our simple Spanish phrasebook 115 Essential Spanish phrases to boost your vocabulary. And that's for anyone who leaves a review and a rating in iTunes during the month of September. So just click the link in the show description. Take a screenshot of your review and send us a DM on instagram@learnspanishconsalsa or just go ahead and email it to us at host@tlearnespanishconsalsa.com and send us that screenshot of your review and we will send you a free copy of our ebook, of our simple Spanish phrase book. And one more quick announcement. Before I go. Now you may have heard Kayla mentioned the learn Spanish with music course and being a member of the Spanish con salsa community during our conversation. Now if you're interested in learning more about this, you can join our VIP waitlist at spanishconsalsa.com/join.

We will be opening up enrollment very soon for a few days. So if you really want to improve your Spanish this fall, make sure you're on our list. So you'll be one the first to know when we open enrollment again, you'll also be able to access some special bonuses that won't be available to the general public. So if you're thinking about learning Spanish the way Kayla did, sign up for our VIP waitlist at spanishconsalsa.com/join and again, we will be opening enrollment very soon.

Now, if you're listening to this after September 3rd, 2019 not to worry, you can still sign up for our waitlist and you will get notified and soon as enrollment opens again. And you'll also get some pretty free resources for learning Spanish with music in the meantime. All right, so again, Spanishspanishconsalsa.com/join and you will be the first to know when the course is available again. So that's it for this episode of the Learn Spanish con Salsa podcast. And as always, I hope that something that you heard today has taken you one step closer on the journey from complete Spanish beginner to confident and bilingual¡Hasta la próxima!