I have to confess right at the beginning that I'm actually not the biggest language fan.
My favorite subject at school? Everything except English and French. I always felt a bit foolish talking to my classmates or teachers in another language when we could talk or discuss exciting topics in German. On vacation, I only liked to speak English or learn the basics in the local languages, because I wanted to talk to the people. But at school? I dropped French after two years. My English was, let's say, okay after 8 years at school. It took more years to really speak confidently. And it took even more time to tell funny, pointed stories in English. However, during the dreary Covid months, I decided to learn a new language: Spanish. I started learning vocabulary, using language learning apps (feel free to read my earlier post on that), and reading Spanish children's books. Then I started a language course (four weeks of 4h/day) in Costa Rica in 2022. I was surrounded by many people who spoke English or even German. I was overcome again by the feeling I already had in school and thus the dilemma: practice the new language but only have the simplest conversation or talk in English and have deeper conversations.
I wanted to learn more about the people around me than just their favorite fruit, favorite color, favorite music. Of course, I know this is necessary in the beginning, but I was hoping for more during my trip to the other side of the ocean. The learning curve was steep, because I didn't know very much beforehand, but the result, was not suuuper great. Of course, I used every opportunity to use my newly acquired Spanish skills, but I continued to have many conversations in English.
I hoped that everything would be different in Colombia. And it was! In the middle of the mountains of San Carlos, I dared to learn Spanish again and it worked out much better. The teachers encouraged us to talk “mas español”. That was fine for me because I got to know the people around me anyway because we were living all together. After the first week I could already have better conversations and understood a lot more.
Language exchange in the town of San Carlos.
On Friday, at the intercambio (language exchange), I met many locals and spoke Spanish almost the whole evening. Actually a reason to be satisfied. However, at the end of the second week, after the Intercambio somehow the strange feeling came again...
I had a good time and laughed a lot, but somehow I was not myself. Looking back, I realized how much non-verbal communication I had used that evening. And that is great! Because it is amazing that two strangers can have so much fun without speaking the same language. But what I missed was making jokes and telling funny stories. The next day I realized how much of the conversation between my friends and me at home consisted of jokes and slang words. It was clear to me that after a few weeks of learning Spanish I would not be able to tell super exciting stories. So I had to find another solution to be able to express my humor linguistically.
In the third week I started asking the teachers for slang words or how they would say things when talking to their friends. I learned a few words and phrases - not too many, but it made for laughs and I felt like I could express my humor linguistically at least a little bit in the new language. Here is a small sampling of my favorite words and sayings:
Parcero - this is like “bro”, an example of usage would be “Qué más parcero?” (how’s it going bro?). The short form of this is parce.
Qué chévere - This is a phrase you have to know in Colombia, when you want to say something is really nice or cool.
Guayabo h.p. - means you have a really strong (!) hangover
Hacer una vaca – You can use this phrase when you want to buy something as a group and everyone needs to put some cash in to pay for it.
Bacano/a - If you wanna say that something is cool.
If you want to learn some 'bacano' phrases before your trip then visit this website: click here.
I wouldn't say that I'm a language fan by now,but I have once again become aware of how much language determines one's personality. And I am glad that here at Spanish Adventure I was able to immerse myself in the Spanish language of Colombia and the peculiarities of San Carlos. It was a unique experience! And for the first time I really enjoyed learning a new language. The wonderful view, the dedicated teachers and the many friendly locals, were of course instrumental in this! My motivation to learn more is there; but I really hope that it won't take another 10 years until I can tell funny stories in Spanish.