This will be short, but I’m curious if anyone has any input that may help here. I’ve decided that I’m going to learn how to speak Spanish. I’m a native English speaker, and I took French in High School and College, although most of that has been lost due to non-use. I’ve decided to try learning Spanish for two reasons: One, I live in Texas, which has a relatively large Mexican (or South American in general) population, so it would make sense to learn it and, Two: We go to Cancun every year for Thanksgiving as it’s off-season at that time and the all-inclusive are less expensive and less congested. (It also gets us out of awkward Thanksgiving dinners. :P) It’s also still mid-to-upper 80s, temperature wise there at that time.
With that said, I’m a computer programmer, fluent in at least 6-7 computer languages. Although they seem complex to outsiders, most computer languages are relatively similar. It’s the syntax between them that is different. Things like VB and C# do nearly all the same things — you just write them differently. An outlier of sorts is SQL as it’s less a programming language and more of a querying language, but that’s not the point. What I’m trying to say here is I’ve picked up on multiple (computer) languages as part of my career throughout my life, and it’s what I do for a living.
How will that knowledge/ability apply to spoken languages? Are there tricks/tips to be aware of between English and another language like Spanish? I know a little bit of Bulgarian, but that’s because my wife is in fact Bulgarian and I’ve been there multiple times, so I can at least read Cyrillic and pronounce most of it, even if I don’t know what I’m saying. My son it’s fairly fluent in it and he’s seven. I never learned that one at all.
Spanish, however, seems more appropriate given my daily life and surroundings. I’ve signed up for the roughly $50 six month plan on Babbel, hoping I can be at least not “the ugly American” this year in Cancun. Does anyone know what to expect? Does anyone have tips on practicing before venturing back there? Don’t get me wrong — where we go, everyone, is really nice and speaks English, but I’d love to be able to converse in their native tongue, and I think they’d appreciate it too. I just don’t want to come off as some idiot with a few practiced phrases. I want to actually understand what they are saying and be able to have a simple conversation.
Any tips or recommendations or suggestions would be welcome.