Meet Andrea!
Published on Feb 8th, 2018- Andrea has always been a bit of an overachiever, and that fact was definitely in evidence when she first started studying Spanish in high school. She created her own flashcards to help her learn and study all the new vocabulary words, and she mastered the Spanish grammar with ease. Her biggest challenge was finding a good conversation partner! Growing up in St Louis, there wasn't a huge Spanish speaking population, and she didn't pursue her language studies in college. So unfortunately, her Spanish knowledge began to wane after high school graduation.
Andrea is a "water engineer by day, independent blogger by lunch break" visit The Watermark Blog to learn all about the workstyle and lifestyle of a fun emerging engineer. After obtaining her engineering degree, Andrea found herself living and working in Austin, Texas where finding a Spanish conversation partner was a lot more likely, and she decided to give Spanish another try. In an effort to expand on her previously acquired skills, she enrolled in a refresher course at a local language school for professionals. Just like in high school, she easily mastered the vocabulary and grammar, but the oral portion was the main challenge. Plus, she wanted to branch out into a more conversational style of speaking that would sound more natural while traveling to other countries, instead of sticking with only the text book vocabulary. Although it was great for refreshing grammar and sentence structure, her professional language course didn't have a conversational focus or include things like slang which make for a more natural style of speaking. Andrea needed to find something more to achieve the fluency that she desired. A quick google search for online language classes led her to Spanish55 and to Ana!
In her initial lessons, Andrea admits that her pronunciation wasn't that great due to the lack of practice speaking aloud in her previous classes, but after only a few video sessions, she had Ana saying, "Yes! I can understand you!" Another big positive for Andrea was the ability to tailor the lessons to learning words and phrases that were beneficial in her day to day life. Since Ana is a native speaker, they were able to include many conversations with vocabulary that is relevant to Andrea's work! She was able to learn various plumbing terms and phrases like below sea level which was definitely a big help on a project in New Orleans, and because Andrea was able to use her new found language skills with these work related terms and phrases, she was able to apply to have the cost of her language lessons covered through a continuing education program with her employer. That's definitely a win-win!
One of Andrea's coworkers was originally from Colombia, and he was super excited to learn that she was taking Spanish lessons! Now most of their work emails and texts are written in Spanish as a way to improve her skills. She finds it to be a very helpful way to gain real world experience, even if it sometimes leaves their other coworkers a little confused when they are copied in. It must be a good way for Andrea to work on her translation skills!
In addition to emails with her coworker, Andrea has also increased her skills by watching Spanish language TV shows and movies. She has even included a few Spanish podcasts into her listening rotation! She says that she is trying to take in as much Spanish content as possible because she believes that it will make her a better listener which will in turn make her a better speaker.
It is important for Andrea to continue her Spanish journey all the way to fluency because she loves to travel! In addition to her work related assignments in various cities, she often takes quick weekend trips for fun and adventure. She really enjoys visiting Mexico where she has spent quite a bit of time both for work and play. She had an amazing sight-seeing trip to Mexico City where she walked around the Centro Historico, the historic district that has landmarks dating back to the Aztecs! She was also able to visit the artist Frida Kahlo's house, snap a picture of the National Palace, and visit some of Diego Rivera's murals! She stumbled upon (and joined) an outdoor Zumba class near the Paseo de la Reforma. Andrea found that she was able to stretch her language muscles as well and was super proud when she was managed to order a cup of coffee without switching to English!
Andrea really hopes to continue her Spanish journey by becoming more fluent in the language through her lessons with Ana and her continued travels. She has plans to visit the Dominican Republic soon, and she really hopes to squeeze in a trip to Cuba sometime in the next year! follow her amazing life on instagram.
