How I’m Finding My Confidence Again in Speaking Spanish

As a first-generation Latina, my Spanish is something I contemplate often. Growing up, it was my first language. I remember starting kindergarten and being frustrated when fellow students or staff couldn’t understand me when I tried to explain myself in Spanish before I learned English. It was deeply ingrained in me, I never thought twice of my fluency or if I sounded “Latina” or “Mexican” enough. As I’ve become bilingual over the years, I’ve felt this tug-o-war between my fluency in English and Spanish. At times I felt as though the more I spoke Spanish the more I lost myself in English and vice versa. Up until college, my time was evenly split speaking only English at school and only Spanish when I got home. Now that I am in my second year living on my own post-college and as the holidays approach, I’ve felt how my relationship with my Spanish has changed and especially, my confidence when speaking the language.

For the past year or so, I’ve been living away from my family in Los Angeles and in the blink of an eye so much time has passed that I have only recently realized how this has affected my Spanish. One would think—and even I thought—that living in a major city with such a large Latinx population would allow me to continue flourishing my comfort and skills in the language. However, what I didn’t account for is just how much space English takes up in my mind. It is the language I speak through my work, the main language I use with my friends, and since college, it is the only language I write in. It’s funny because it isn’t just in the way I talk, but also how I think. There was a point in my life where my thoughts were predominantly in Spanish and now it seems that those Spanish thoughts are few and far between.

At first I didn’t really notice how this change in environment affected my speaking. I thought, “Well I call my mom every week and we speak Spanish. It seems normal then.” When really looking back, I realize how many words I miss or how many Google searches I do to translate words in English to Spanish. I realize how much I stutter or how much I stumble on my words. I realize pronunciations that were once second nature to me, now take me second. 

I recently conducted my first interview in Spanish as a way to challenge myself. The anxiety during the preparation and the interview itself were more than usual. The nerve-wracking part of this experience was the fact that I was speaking to native Spanish speakers. The thought of that kept creeping up in my head every time I spoke. All I could think about was, “They probably think this isn’t my first language. They can tell I’m struggling.” This is something I have considered for weeks following the interview and it’s the first time I’ve felt myself losing confidence in how I speak Spanish. When I was still living with my parents, I had those stumbles or forgetful moments but my confidence was unwavering because I was speaking and writing in Spanish all the time. Now—more than ever—that I’ve lost some of that practice I can see some regression in my fluency and it scares me.

To work on these insecurities, I’ve taken inspiration from my childhood to work on my Spanish in small ways. From enjoying telenovelas such as Betty, La Fea or watching Spanish-language series like Como Agua Para Chocolate, I’ve added more Spanish-language media to surround myself with the language more often. On top of playlists filled with cumbias and norteño music, I’ve taken up reading novels by Latin American authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Spanish to rebuild my comfort in reading Spanish. Outside of that, I try my best to break through my shyness to strike up conversations at corner stores and shops with other Spanish speakers para perderle el miedo.  

With the holidays fast approaching and soon re-entering a Spanish-only space, I look forward to having a chance to reconnect with my language in an environment that I find the most comfortable. While in the back of my mind I fear my family noticing my insecurities in my Spanish, I’m excited to take on new challenges in continuing to learn Spanish and reconnect with my “Spanish” voice again.