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This text is different. The following text presents a personal reflection on the author's experience with learning to speak Spanish in Mexico by using an electronic translation service. I have lived in Mexico for nearly 6 months now, and it has been one of the most incredible adventures of my life so far - if not my life, then at least my year. With this being said, I have found myself in great need to learn Spanish in order to be able to "fit in". As you can imagine, I was quite clueless when it came to even breaking the ice with Mexicans when speaking these painful two syllables that make up the word "hola. I had spent the better part of my life learning to speak Spanish, and I had come to Mexico with a huge advantage - my American-ness. So I was shocked at how difficult it was for me to even learn the most basic things in Spanish. It was especially awful when it came to asking directions or finding places. I decided that this would be my first test, so I went into Guadalajara armed with an electronic translator - something that has become ubiquitous amongst Americans who don't speak Spanish very well (myself included). It is a device that you use to speak into, and it translates what you say into Spanish. Your words then come out of the box in Spanish. It is not a great translation - I would estimate, my own translation software does a better job - but it gets the point across. This technology has been around forever, so my friends and I used to have a lot of fun with it in high school when we would go to lunch from our small town. Now I was using it to help me learn how to speak Spanish, and the irony was not lost on me. This process of taking Spanish classes had really taken its toll on me, and I began to look for every advantage that I could possibly get. So what did I do? I decided that I would try speaking with this translation device at all times (and sometimes even still today). The reason for this was quite simple - if it worked for normal conversation, then surely it would help with my new found passion of writing. So after spending an afternoon with my tutor trying to figure out how this thing worked (she spoke very little English), we finally had our first conversation. It was awkward at first, but I think her Spanish is actually better than mine. The reason for this is she had, apparently, taken the time to memorize each word that I said into the device. This was great - simple things like "where" or "what" came out perfectly translated. That meant that my next task would be to focus on learning where to say things rather than just knowing what can be said. This led me to some very interesting situations (such as crossing the street), but it had its pros as well (such as navigating buses). cfa1e77820
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