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As my daughter, Hannah, does her college course work, I sometimes look over her shoulder to see what she is working on. Often it looks like she is writing in a foreign language, which she is. One of her classes this term is the second semester of Spanish.

She has enjoyed this class; a fact that isn’t really surprising to me. She has always been interested in languages, beginning with the English language. She started talking early and added words by leaps and bounds as fast as she could. Continuing with her drive to understand and be understood, she also learned to read at an early age, moving up through reading levels as fast as she could.

She also studied Latin as we home-schooled her. She picked up the various aspects of the language so many other languages are based on. She would marvel us with her knowledge as she explained various things she learned from week to week.

Her desire to learn Spanish comes partially from the school’s requirement for graduation and partly because she is just interested in learning. Like her studies in Latin, she enjoys sharing various new words and phrases as she learns them with her father and me. This is fun for both of us as the only Spanish we know is what we learned more than 40 years ago on Sesame Street. Knowing the Spanish word for water (agua) has only gotten us so far in life. It certainly has its limitations if we are at our favorite Mexican restaurant and want to do more than point at the pictures of the food we want.

Shortly after she began last fall, she was introduced to the alphabet. I found her a YouTube video to watch to reinforce the letters. She found it humorous that her teacher showed the same video to her class the next time she was there.

One of the first words she taught us back in the fall was the word “soy”, meaning “I am.” I guess she felt that it might come in handy if we needed to identify ourselves. “Soy Linda,” she taught me to say.

She then moved on to teaching us to say “tengo calor,” meaning “I’m hot.” She knew that as hot-natured as I am this phrase would be a good one for me to learn. My husband and I, being the silly parents that we are, combined it with another phrase she had introduced us to, “el baño,” to create the sentence “I am hot in the bathroom.”

Since it was winter, she also taught us “tengo frío”, which means “I’m cold.” This was a lot of fun for us to say when the bitter freeze set in by December and January. I also noticed how similar frío sounded to “Frigo,”a brand of cheese we buy from time to time. With this new knowledge, I began to say “tengo Frigo,” which was my own way of saying “I’m cheese.”

Hannah burst my language development bubble by informing me that my make-believe sentence was not grammatically correct somehow. Still, it was fun to say when it was just us or we were out buying more cheese. Eventually as she learned the Spanish word for cheese and taught me “el queso.” Somehow it just isn’t the same saying “I’m cheese” the right way.

Her Spanish is beginning to come in handy in real life as well. One morning at her job she overheard two people she works with discussing in Spanish how much chicken they should pull out to be cooked. Hannah stood nearby doing her own task, understanding bits and pieces of the conversation. The main point she understood was how much chicken they intended to pull, an amount that was incorrect for the time of day. 

Hannah spoke up to correct them, causing both of her coworkers to stare at her in disbelief that she had understood enough of their conversation to contribute. They later joked with her that they were going to have to be careful what they said from now on around Hannah now that she is learning Spanish.

Hannah has also found it has helped her ordering skills at restaurants. She no longer is happy just pointing at the food she wants. She now attempts to ask for items by sounding out the names she sees on the menu. She finds it amusing that she now has a general idea of what she is getting — before she just had to hope for the best when trying something new.

It has been fun watching and listening to Hannah learn to communicate in a new language one word at a time.

Likewise, it has been enjoyable for us, ella padres (her parents) to add a few Spanish words to the one Burt and Ernie taught us many years ago. Gracias, Hannah, gracias!

Linda Vestal is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend living in Gibsonville. Contact her with comments or story ideas at lindavestal@triad.rr.com.