“Soy de Londres,” is what I should have said. But that’s not what came out of my mouth in a classroom full of students on day one of the Spanish course.
But I’m already getting ahead of myself.
This phrase “Soy de...” (“I’m from...” followed by your place of origin) is probably one that you learned on the very first day you started studying Spanish. It’s on page one of all the textbooks. It’s always in the essential phrase lists you find online. It’ll usually be taught in your first group Spanish lesson. This was the case for me, anyway.
We are going back to the early days of my Spanish-learning adventures now.
Rush-hour rush
I had recently moved to Barcelona from my home city of London and had decided to sign up for a class called the Almost Free Spanish School, which cost something like €40 for an intensive month of classes.
The plan had been that actively forcing myself to interact with other Spanish learners might lessen the paralysing embarrassment I felt every time I tried to converse with native speakers in this new and unfamiliar language.
The first class was on a sweltering June morning in Barcelona. And I was running late.
The bus I was sitting and perspiring on seemed to have given up and taken a nap amid the rush-hour traffic. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes until my class was due to start. The sweat rolled down my back. Minutes passed.
Once the bus wheezed into the next stop, I jumped onto the curb, then rushed down the road, trying to locate one of the city rental bikes. Four minutes until class.
Last one in, first one out
By the time I arrived outside the Language school in the centre of Barcelona, I was soaked in sweat. Pushing through the double doors of the entrance, dishevelled and out of breath, I found that the rest of my new classmates had already been taken to the classroom.
The woman sitting behind reception watched me patiently as I stammered away in Spanglish that I was there for the Almost Free Spanish course. She responded in perfect English, explaining where the classroom was: up three flights of stairs.
As I bundled through the classroom door, everyone turned to look at me. I apologised in English, then in Spanish, and then I found a seat next to a middle-aged woman, who smiled at me reassuringly as I sat down, wiping the sweat from my brow.
The Spanish teacher explained (again in flawless English) that the air-conditioning wasn't working but that they would keep the window open. Now it was clear why everyone was sitting on the other side of the room.
Summer school
The class consisted of about 40 other students. Many of them were young Americans over in Barcelona for the summer. Some of them must have been about to start their Erasmus programmes. Other students were retirees travelling around Europe, stopping off on their Grand Tours. Some people, like me, had decided to move to Spain but needed help learning the lingo.
The Almost Free Spanish School had advertised that the group would be for beginners, but as it turned out, there was quite a range of Spanish proficiency on display that morning.
Several of the students were clearly nearer the intermediate level. My guess is that they’d taken the class to meet new potential paramours, to chat and flirt and exchange phone numbers.
Sitting opposite me was a serious young man, perhaps middle-eastern, with dark, sarcastic eyes. As the lesson started and the three enthusiastic young Spanish teachers explained how we'd start by going around the room, introducing ourselves, saying our name and where we were from, this young man rolled his eyes with irritation.
An introvert’s nightmare
The teachers kicked things off, demonstrating the introductions by telling us their names, where they were from, and where they lived now.
“Soy Paula. Soy de Valencia. Y ahora vivo en Barcelona.”
To my horror, I realised that after the middle-aged American woman sitting next to me, I’d be the next in line to introduce myself. My tongue was dry in my mouth. My pulse was thumping in my throat. I was barely listening to the woman as, haltingly, she told everyone her name and where she was from. Instead, I was trying to remember the simple phrase, trying to drill it into my head.
Unfortunately, when I cleared my throat to speak, what came out of my mouth was: “Soy James. Soy de Barcelona. Erm, vivo en Barcelona.”
Instantly I realised my mistake, but it was too late. The teachers smiled and nodded their encouragement, even though I had just told everyone that I was a Barcelona native.
The sarcastic young man opposite me snorted with amusement.
Not waving but drowning
I was mortified. I spent the rest of the lesson on the back foot, catching the smirks of my classmates, who now knew me as the only idiot who hadn’t even been able to repeat three simple sentences (though that’s probably just my paranoia. Most of the kids were far more interested in making plans to hit up the bars that evening to “practise some Spanish”).
I sat there, burning with embarrassment, my mind still looping on what had happened, trying and failing to keep up.
Actually, I’m more ashamed of what I did the next day.
I quit.
The following morning, I phoned the kind receptionist and asked whether it was possible to get a refund. I made up some excuse about a sudden trip I had to take; something important had come up for work, I explained. But really, I was retreating to my apartment and my flashcards. And there I stayed, licking my self-inflicted wounds.
Why am I telling you this?
I’m not telling you this story to put you off, just to explain how difficult it can be for introverts to learn in this context and how easy it can be to give up.
The important thing is to discover the type of learning that works best for you.
For me, self-study or one-on-one classes will always be easier than having to introduce myself to a large group, trying to learn in the pressurised environment of a classroom.
One good thing came out of the experience: I’ll never forget how to introduce myself in Spanish again.
Alright, we’ll get back to some learning tips next time.
If you guys have had similar experiences, please feel free to share them below.
¡Gracias como siempre!
“Soy de Londres...”
Loved this funny and honest account of the early days of learning a language. If at first you don’t succeed…
I was 5, thrust into a kindergarten class in a different country with snotty children who kindly were asking my name, but even though the words were forever seared into my memory, I didn’t understand what they meant - “What’s your name?” - and I felt so lost and helpless that I just burst into tears in response.
I don’t remember how long it took me to understand English - I was so young, so probably quite quickly. But every language I’ve learned since then has been preceded by a steely certainty that no matter how hard it could be, it’d never feel as hard as that first day of school in England, five years old, feeling lost and alone.