Why You Should Take The Time To Learn Spanish Fluently
If you intend on needing to speak Spanish a lot then it is in your best interest to learn Spanish fluently because in a foreign language, just as in English, one wrong word here or there can make a huge difference. For example, the phrase "putting the dog out for the night" can mean something completely different if you change just one word and make it "hanging the dog out for the night." Something tells me the dog would not appreciate that.
The same thing can happen if you do not learn Spanish fluently. You could be in a restaurant thinking you are ordering a wonderful Spanish dinner for you and your wife and the next thing you know the waiter starts slapping you because you insulted his family. It can happen, the Spanish are a proud people. But if you take the time to learn Spanish fluently then you won't have these problems and taking the time to learn Spanish fluently can also help you in important situations where the only information you get is in Spanish and you really need to know what is going on.
Let us say you are in an office building and you see a sign on an elevator door but you cannot read it because you did not take the time to learn Spanish fluently. Well you press the button and stand there to wait for the elevator while all around you Spanish people are laughing at you. Why are they laughing? The sign you cannot read says that the elevator is out of order and please use the stairs. If you had taken the time to learn Spanish fluently you could avoid situations like this and save your self time and embarrassment.
All Of The Practical Uses
If you do not learn Spanish fluently then if you try and rent a car you may wind up with a bicycle. These examples are very extreme of course but learning how to communicate properly in any language is your responsibility if you know you will be living in that culture for a long time. They are not going to learn English to appease you so you will need to learn Spanish fluently so you can communicate with them. Remember that there is nothing as important as proper communication.
So take your time to learn Spanish fluently and you will benefit from that for years to come. It takes a while but in the end it is so much better to know the language you are living with than wasting time waiting for an elevator that will never come.
