Internship
Reflection
Due to the unique circumstances of 2020 and 2021, I wasn't able to work an internship, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, I chose to try and learn a new skill over the quarantine. I decided to tackle an old challenge of mine that I never fully completed. I tried to learn Spanish, and it went a lot better than I expected. I had already taken three years of Spanish in high school, and I even got all A's, but the information never seemed to stick. Yet, when I decided to learn on my own, everything just seemed to fall into place.
I believe that the school environment, which helped me with so much of my other learning, may have hindered my ability to learn Spanish. In particular, I think the problem lies with the fact that our teacher didn't believe in learning by immersion, which meant that we would speak English in class. I believe that this constant switching from English to Spanish made it so that I wasn't learning Spanish because I didn't have to.
It was a completely different experience to be able to learn Spanish on my own instead of just completing whatever instruction I was given. Then again, the sheer amount of free time I had throughout quarantine might have helped me focus more on my studies because I was able to work at my own pace.
Overall, I think that the quarantine may have been a blessing in disguise when it comes to independent pursuits. I would like to follow that sentence by clarifying that quarantine was not enjoyable, and I never want to go through it again. Anyway, while I am still not very fluent in Spanish, I will say that I learned more this year than I ever expected to.
Log
Day 1:
First time reading or writing Spanish in Months, and this is actually easier than I remember it being. I wasn't expecting any of the knowledge to stick, but I guess I got lucky. Maybe this won't be as bad as I thought it would be.
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Day 5:
All right, so far the work has been easy because I was working with words and phrases I at least partially knew, but from this point on it is uncharted waters. I'm starting to remember why I never liked Spanish it's challenging to remember which words are supposed to be accents, or god forbid, what the gender of an item is supposed to be. I know English is a mess in its own right, but at least the chair isn't gendered.
Day 10:
More of the same so far, nothing particularly challenging, but it does take me some time to complete assignments. Oh, I forgot to clarify that I am using Duolingo to learn Spanish, it's mostly for convenience sake because it's well known, and I am locked at home so, I don't have many options.
Day 15:
I can't believe I am saying this, but I am actually enjoying this. I never liked learning other languages, and it was mostly because I wasn't particularly good at English, to begin with. Why learn another language when you can barely understand one? However, I seem to have stumbled upon a solution to my problem because having to learn the writing and grammar for Spanish has helped me improve my English. I also enjoy the challenge of having to actually learn on my own time, instead of sitting in a classroom getting talked at.
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Day 20:
All right, this will be my final log. I feel like I have finally finished learning the basics of Spanish, and some of the basics. While I am nowhere near fluent, I can at least understand the meanings of most conversations and give basic responses. While my twenty hours are up I will continue to practice Spanish in my free time both because I want to learn, and because the challenge helps keep my mind sharp.