“Those who know many languages live as many lives as the languages they know.”

— Czech proverb

It’s a brisk Monday morning in Buenos Aires—my first Monday in the city—and the sky is the color of silver. Outside, a bracing late-winter wind sweeps through the streets; coats cannot be zipped up high enough. Gratefully, I’m sequestered indoors, seated at a wide table, with a fresh notebook open in front of me. Its blank, white pages conjure both dread and anticipation.

For more than five years now, whenever I land in a new city—no matter where I happen to be in the world—the first book I open and begin to fill is my sketchbook. But the book laying in front of me now, handmade by my dear friend Cara in San Francisco, is decidedly not for sketching.

Instead of watercolor paper, this book is comprised of standard white printer paper. Instead of drawing pens or brushes, a standard ballpoint pen lays next to my notebook on the table. And instead of sketches—or notes about the encounters that might’ve unfolded through a certain sketch—this book is about to hold notes of a far different nature.

For the first time in five years, I’m going back to school—Spanish school, to be exact.

Spanish homework*   *   *

My recent journey to the southern half of South America had a few catalysts—inspiring new friendships, the draw of experiencing a new part of the world—but one catalyst was not entirely new: It would be, I decided earlier this year, a perfect opportunity to study Spanish again.

Having just turned 30 in June, it’s crazy to think I’ve now known some degree of Spanish for more than half my life. I started studying the language when I was 14 and kept it up throughout high school. As a naïvely ambitious college freshman, I even wanted to minor in the language—until the amount of writing in higher-level Spanish classes became too much to juggle with my English major’s already-sizable writing requirements.

But while my formal Spanish education ceased in my junior year of university, I was grateful that a foundational knowledge of the language never really went away. Every time I traveled in Spain or to a new part of Latin America, I was delighted to have basic phrases ready for retrieval from the dusty back corners of my mind.

I could make sure this or that bus was the one I needed. I could ask for directions without gesticulating like an ecstatic mime. Most importantly, I could ask for someone’s name; learn about their life; say goodbye with a bit of their story now a part of mine.

Travel sketch Girona Spain
I loved connecting with a bandoneón player in Spain last year (one of the key instruments used for tango); our connection means even more now that I’m in Argentina.

*   *   *

Here’s the problem, though—I never went deeper.

I never learned more Spanish than what I already knew.

I never resumed building on that preexisting foundation of the language.

Finally, once my flight to Buenos Aires had been booked this summer, I decided it was time for a change. And so I turned to that which fate has so often used to direct the course of my life—i.e. hello, Google!—and typed in “Spanish school in Buenos Aires.” 

I read reviews. I compared costs. I studied schedules and locations and websites. At last, the perfect choice for me seemed to present itself—El Pasaje Spanish School. It would be but a 20-minute walk from my apartment in the neighborhood of San Telmo. For 20 hours of intensive group instruction per week, the fee was but $175. And I especially loved their colorful website and Instagram account, and the excitement they appeared to genuinely feel for their students.

En route to Buenos Aires—on the seven-hour layover in El Salvador I wrote about last week—I sat in an airport café, completing my entrance exam for El Pasaje, feeling my pulse race with palpable excitement for what this new chapter was about to hold.

Spanish schools in Buenos Aires

*   *   *

It’s now been two weeks since I arrived in Buenos Aires and, by this time tomorrow afternoon, I will have completed 40 hours of classes at El Pasaje—or, nearly the equivalent of an entire college semester’s worth of instruction.

And with those 40 hours of classes now behind me, there are so many things I want to share with you today. I want to tell you about my professor Santiago, and how much I adore his style of teaching—about how clearly he’s explained topics that once made me want to all but tear my hair out (pretérito indefinido vs. imperfecto, I’m looking at you…).

I want to tell you about how my class has only three students in it, myself included, and how it has been just a lot of downright fun to sit around the table with them each day, so much so that I often forget I’m with two fellow students and our teacher—and not only laughing and conversing with three fun new friends.

Spanish schools in Buenos Aires
Group shot with new friends: Glory from Atlanta, Georgia; Wiebke from Hamburg, Germany; and Santiago from Buenos Aires.

And yet what I most want to tell you about—and what I’m going to devote the rest of this story to—are not the great breakthroughs that have occurred at El Pasaje, but the little eureka moments of comprehension that have happened outside of class.

Moments like—the morning I was walking to class, and I had to pause on a street corner while the light was red. As I stood there, a local bus roared past me in a huff of fumes and exhaust, but as it slowed to make a turn, I had just enough time to read the ad on its side, which was apparently promoting a brand of hygiene product:

Lo mejor de tu vida pasa en el baño.

Just the day before, Santiago had taught us about a certain grammatical construction in Spanish. In English, it’s common to say, “The good thing about X is…” or “The interesting thing is…”, but in Spanish, ‘thing’—or cosa—goes unspoken. You need only say “Lo bueno es…” or “Lo interesante es…” or “Lo mejor es…” (“The best thing is…”).

It’s one thing to learn something in a classroom; it’s quite another thing to see it out in the real world, and to be standing on an unassuming street corner in Buenos Aires, suddenly capable of reading the ad on the side of a bus (though whether or not you agree with said ad is a different story…):

The best part of your life happens in the bathroom.

Bus in Buenos Aires
Another bus advertisement spotted last week, this one roughly translated as, “The best thing that can happen to you in the bathroom.”

Then there was the moment at lunch with a dear friend in Recoleta, a downtown neighborhood famous for its historic cemetery.

It was a gloriously warm afternoon—the late-winter winds having finally abated for once—and we had feasted on our own personal table-top grill, or parrilla, laden with mouth-watering skewers of chicken and pork. Afterwards, our stomachs about to burst, we asked the waitress if we could pay for our bill by card.

Por supuesto, she said—of course. We offered her a card, she ran it through the machine, and once the receipt was printed, she searched through her pockets for a pen—not coming up with one. When she motioned to one of her colleagues across the restaurant, asking him to bring her a pen, I saw I had one sitting in front of me and offered it to her.

Gracias,” she said, and then called to her colleague again, saying she didn’t need a pen anymore. “Me acaba de prestar.”

I cannot adequately express the excitement I felt in this moment. Again, on one of our first days of class, Santiago had explained a particular form of verb construction—that using the phrase acabarse de with the infinitive form of another verb translates as, “to just X…”. For example, to say, “Acabo de terminar clase,” translates as, “I just finished class,” or “Acabo de llegar del aeropuerto” means “I just arrived from the airport.”

It was for only this reason that I understood our waitress that sun-soaked afternoon in Recoleta, when she called out to her colleague and said I had just given her a pen. I felt the same flush of satisfaction I’d felt after reading the bus ad on that street corner—knowing I’d just made sense of something that would have once slipped right past me.

Parrilla grill in Buenos Aires
About to dive into the “Gran Pincho” parrillada at Clark’s Restaurante…

And finally, there was a moment at my very first milonga, or tango club, in Buenos Aires.

One of my fellow classmates, a lovely German girl named Wiebke, is a former professional ballroom dancer and absolute tango fanatic. Throughout our first week of class, she had shared story after story of nights spent dancing into the early hours of the morning. Last Friday night, I had the chance to join her at one of her favorite milongas in San Telmo, Chanta 4.

Later in the night, we were sitting and waiting for a live tango orchestra to begin playing, when our friend Juan turned to me and said, “Candace, me duermo.

Before my time at El Pasaje, I’m sure I would have heard the word duermo, translated it literally as “I sleep,” and could have only assumed he meant it was time for him to leave and get some sleep. But as it just so happened, that very morning Santiago had taught us the difference between dormir and dormirse—and explained that while the former word means “to sleep,” the latter is a reflexive version of the word that means, “to fall asleep.”

“You’re falling asleep!” I said excitedly to Juan, before turning to Wiebke to share in my excitement with her. “Wiebke! Juan just said me duermo—he’s falling asleep!!”

Tango milonga in Buenos Aires
Basking in the magic of a live tango group, El Sexteto Fantasma.

*   *   *

These moments are not in any way hugely significant—but you wouldn’t know that by the utter rush of joy I felt each time.

In every situation, something clicked into place in my mind that absolutely would never have clicked had I not spent these last two weeks studying Spanish so intensely. More and more, I’m realizing these little moments are one way of marking our progress in a foreign language—they are the tiny minnows that would have otherwise swum right through our net.

I leave Buenos Aires for Uruguay on Monday, but I will always be grateful for how this journey began—by returning to a language I’ve long loved, collecting every eureka moment of understanding, and filling a new kind of notebook to its entirety.

I can’t wait to pick up my sketchbook again soon—but just for now, the sketches can wait…

Wine in Buenos Aires
My new favorite way to spend an evening in Buenos Aires…reading Mark Twain in Spanish over a glass of Malbec.

*   *   *

How to connect with El Pasaje Spanish School:

  • El Pasaje is located at 83 Piedras Street, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo.
  • Visit their website at www.elpasajespanish.com, or send an email to [email protected] (and please tell them I say hola!).

banner_subscribe2

17 Comments

  • I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed your Spanish classes and your stay in Buenos Aires! One of my favorite things to hear as someone who has lived in that city and now teaches Spanish. There’s something amazing about being able to use and hear the language both in and out of the classroom that makes the language learning so much more meaningful. Best of luck with the rest of your trip in the region, it’s a beautiful place!

    • Thank you so much for your note and kind words here, Kara! It’s wonderful to hear you’ve lived in Buenos Aires, and especially that you now teach Spanish…after these intense past two weeks with the language, please know that you have all of my respect 🙂 I can’t wait to keep sharing stories from a region you yourself have journeyed through and enjoyed so much!

  • Querida Candace:
    ¡Definitivamente dejaste una huella en todos nosotros en El Pasaje Spanish School! 🙂 Estamos muy contentos de leer este artículo tan lindo sobre nuestra escuela y de saber que tu experiencia estudiando español en Buenos Aires fue tan enriquecedora. Esperamos de todo corazón que vuelvas a visitarnos en tu próximo viaje a Buenos Aires… ¡Siempre serás bienvenida! We are gonna miss you, new friend! <3

    Abrazos de parte de todo el equipo de El Pasaje Spanish School.

    • A todo el equipo de El Pasaje–muchísimas gracias por estas palabras tan agradables!! Y por favor sabe que vos has dejaste una huella en mi tambien…por seguro, “enriquecedora” es la palabra perfecta para describir mi tiempo a la escuela. Mi experiencia alli fue todo por la que yo esperaba, y mucho, mucho mas! Ahora, siento que yo tengo una segunda casa con El Pasaje–asi muchas gracias por eso, y no puedo esperar a reunirte con vos pronto! <3

    • This makes me so happy to hear, Nikki–and makes writing this story entirely worth it for me 🙂 Starting to study Spanish again has truly been the most rewarding of experiences, and I so hope you’ll have the chance to pick it back up again soon as well!

  • Lovely story, Candace! I felt the same way when I began learning to read Kannada all those years ago in Bangalore — I would get so excited each time I was able to decipher the scribbles on a bus or sign, even if I didn’t always know what it then translated to in English. It’s amazing how accomplished you feel when something unlocks in your brain!

    I hope you are having wonderful travels, and I am having a great time reading your updates! One of these days I’ll send you an email with all of my life updates 🙂 Hugs xx

    • Veena, I can’t tell you how much your lovely notes mean each time–and you put it so perfectly! That feeling of something being unlocked in your brain is officially my new favorite feeling 🙂 Each day feels like a little battle to get to a new breakthrough, but every time I have one of those unlocking moments, all the intense studying (and, I will confess, frustration…) becomes worth the effort–or ‘vale la pena,’ as I was recently taught to say! I also so hope you’ll send a life update soon, as I’d love to hear how you’re doing and what you’re up to! As always, please know I’m sending the biggest hugs and my best thoughts your way. xoxo

  • It’s so fantastic to read about your Spanish joys, Candace – I’ve felt exactly the same at different points of my Spanish learning journey 🙂 Little linguistic minnows that not only get caught in the net, but remain just as beautifully fresh each time you remember your unique association with that word or phrase. For me, it’s moments like snorkelling in the Galapagos and hearing our guide shouting, “Mira! Tiburones abajo!” which was my first, wonderfully dramatic introduction to the Spanish word for shark 🙂 The idea that my understanding of Spanish can be peppered with stories is part of what makes the process so tantalising – and clearly it’s the same for you! Buen suerte 🙂

    • Flora! I’m just getting caught up on comments tonight and was delighted to read yours…especially as I think you just nailed what was so wonderfully fun about language learning in Buenos Aires: It’s that intersection between a language and stories, isn’t it? And how each new breakthrough with a language is often intrinsically tied to an experience. Thank you so much for sharing one of your own such stories with Spanish–I can only imagine what a wonder it was to be snorkeling with sharks in the Galapagos 🙂 Sending a big hug your way from Montevideo!

  • Hola. Love your stories and your sketches. Having trouble with Discus, which I’ve always used in the past to reply to you & it was working fine. Let’s hope it’s straightened out now as I want to get to the remaining stories. Happy trails.

    • Thank you so much for your comment here, Roberta! I’m just sorry to hear you’ve been having trouble with Disqus…it seems as though it might be sorted out now, though, which I’m grateful for–your kind words and insights are always so welcome 🙂

  • What a lovely story to brighten up my Wednesday! I love these ‘aha!’ moments you’re having and the little wins you’re getting from picking up the structure of the language. You go girl!

  • This post makes me so happy, Candace! Like you, I have roughly dabbled in language up to a basic conversational level but not really anything beyond that. I minored in German, but never had the chance to dive into the language (I’ve spent all of five days in Germany). I also learned the basics of Swahili while living in Kenya and am trying to pick up some Russian (let’s face it, a complete disaster), but as I attempt to study a bit of Russian each day I also review lessons because I do want to become conversationally fluent in another language. I would love to take an intensive class like yours – hopefully I can find those “aha” moments some day too! Congratulations and enjoy!

    • Thank you so much for your kind words here, JoAnna–and especially for your language-learning moral support! 🙂 If I’ve found going deeper in my knowledge of Spanish to be a challenge, I can only imagine attempting to learn Swahili or Russian…so please know you have my total respect and support as well! As I’ve shared with you before, it’s been so much fun to follow along your new adventure so far, and I really hope you’ll be able to experience Ukraine on a new linguistic level soon. Sending big hugs from Montevideo!

Comments are closed.