Lộc Lương

I started learning Spanish early this year. I chose Spanish mainly because I live in New Mexico, where a large number of people speak it in daily life. At the same time, I was curious to see how difficult it would be to learn a new language other than English. The speaking is much easier than English, as in Spanish words is spoken almost exactly like what they are written. But the grammar and gender are more difficult than English, I think.

I think in both English and Vietnamese, but prefer English for scientific thoughts and pondering. It might be understandable that some people experience different personalities when switching between different languages of speaking. But I don’t think that personality changes, and depends, or ties to certain cultural framework of the languages we speak. It probably is just a nuance of how we think and express ourself in different language, as the same thoughts can be expressed in different ways, depending on the language we’re using.

I often struggle to find the right words I should use in certain situations. For examples, if I talk to my American friends, my brain sometimes delays for more than few seconds to figure out the right words to use. Likewise, when I talk to my Vietnamese friends, I also pause a bit to think about the best words to use. Another interesting thing is that even I’m speaking Vietnamese to my friends, some English words just pop up in the middle of the sentences I’m trying to say. Sometimes it looks like my brain is solving an optimization problem to figure out the best-fit vocabulary to convey my ideas or messages.

Because I’m not sure what it’s like for a person to think in three different languages, my goal is to become as fluent in Spanish as possible. But it does seem like a big challenge, especially since I’m just at basic level!