This day in age, it is easy to learn a new language. Seriously, take me for example. Yesterday I decided I was going to learn how to speak, read, and write in Spanish.
Twenty-four hours later and here you have it – my first few sentences in Spanish:
Este día en edad es fácil aprender un nuevo lenguaje. Seriamente, tómeme por ejemplo. Decidía ayer que iba a aprender cómo hablar, leí, y escribo en español.
Veinticuatro horas más adelante, y aquí usted lo tiene.
If I wanted to impress you, I could write the above sentence in French, Arabic, German, Chinese, and just about any language I can think of – or is it any language made available through the online translator.
These programs are great as a quick reference tool; however, they are not ideal to use as a substitute for genuine learning… then something came to mind, suddenly, everything made sense.
My daughter had three years of Spanish in high school, but do you think she could speak one line of Spanish – why is this?
Unfortunately, just like me, she used one of the many online translators to do her homework – I had no clue this tool existed when she was in school. (Something I learned long after she graduated.)
The temptation to rely on it is great; all a person has to do is type in the text, choose one of the many languages, and push the translate button. This however, did not teach me anything about the style of the Spanish language; how does this sentence read? How do I pronounce the newly translated words?
This is probably not a new revelation for most of you, still, I encourage all parents who have teens in school to make sure your child/children are not relying on these translators to help them with their homework – or rather, doing the homework for them.
My quest for learning Spanish began about a week ago, when a friend of mine wrote a comment on my facebook page regarding another friend. One of the words in the sentence was, "pregunta". The sentence went something like this, "Carrie… to amiga… pregunta." I had no idea what this meant, so I jokingly replied, "What? Carrie is pregnant?" Of course, I knew this wasn't the case, and we had great fun with it. Nevertheless, it left me frustrated and challenged. This is when I was reminded of this online feature.
(Why does the Spanish word "pregunta" -- meaning, "question" -- sound like the English word pregnant?)
I am using it to get familiar with phrases, yet committed to learning the language the old-fashioned way; correctly. In fact, I have decided to purchase a Spanish Bible. To be honest, this is the only way the zeal will not be lost.
This however, is the third time I have committed to learning. I do pray it will be the last, and my hope is that eventually I will be able to write a story in Spanish without cutting and pasting from an online source.
Happy learning to all! Resist the temptation to take shortcuts – notice I did not leave a link. ((Grin))
(Kind of makes me think about all the other short cuts we tend to take in life - hhmm.)
© Teresa Ortiz
