Stories from my 14-month study abroad in Buenos Aires, my 16-month post-college move to Miami, and my get-me-the-hell-out-of-Miami move to Denver

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Who's Really Fluent?

So I'm going to graduate from college in May. Pretty exciting stuff. However, as I get closer to graduation, something has started to bother me.

I've been working on my resume a lot lately, and in my resume class, under the "languages" section, everyone feels that they can put "Spanish" if they've taken one year of Spanish in college.

I'm sorry but no!

Whenever I'm talking to someone about languages, or I overhear someone in class say they have "Spanish" on their resume, I immediately start talking to them in Spanish. Just plain conversational stuff, nothing difficult. The answer, in English, is always the same, "Oh, I haven't taken Spanish in a couple years, I'm really rusty."

If you get flustered when someone comes up and makes simple conversation with you in Spanish, how in the world can you put that you speak Spanish on your resume. You speak English! Knowing "Hola" "Como estas?" and "Muy bien" does not make you fluent.





Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Life Update

So I got the urge to write a little update on my life since this past summer, where knowing spanish has gotten me, and some of my thoughts on studying abroad. Stay tuned. Should be up in a day or so.