There have been so many times that I’ve said something along the lines of “I’m not good at learning other languages.” And while that’s somewhat true, the real truth of the matter is that I have hardly invested time or energy into actually doing it.

I’ve said that “the only way I’ll ever learn another language is by going and living somewhere that speaking English isn’t really an option.” But that’s hardly an excuse for not even trying.

I’ve also gotten distracted so many times from attempting to learn one language by the excitement of traveling somewhere that another language is spoken that I completely forget about the first and more on to the ‘more exciting language.’ And let’s just put that last one on repeat.

Well, no longer. I’m not making excuses anymore. I’m sucking it up and committing myself to at least getting to the point of being conversational in Spanish. Why Spanish? While it’s not my favorite language, nor the one I am most excited about learning, I do think that it is the most useful second language for someone who lives in the U.S. and likes to travel. There are a heck of a lot of different countries in the world that have Spanish as their primary language. That will give me a lot of excuses to use it – I hope.

Why this post? Well, I want to be held accountable. So, next time you see me – ask me how the Spanish learning is going! And if I don’t answer you in Spanish, you can consider me a total fraud and stop reading my blog 🙂 And, if you see a Spanish word sprinkled in here or there in future blog posts, now you know why! But don’t worry – I’m not going to be blogging in Spanish anytime soon.

Those of you that have successfully learned other languages in your lifetime – what tips do you have to help me out?