- I have a fear that I won't let myself learn.
(playful music)
I think we all know by now that I'm known
for not speaking the best Spanish.
I started the maya Concha series
so that I could connect with those who felt the same way,
but it was also to try to fill that void in me.
And it did make me feel better for a little bit.
But I knew the only thing that would truly
make myself feel better was to just learn.
I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna learn Spanish.
One thing I wanted to know before I started
this Spanish journey was why didn't my parents teach me?
- My parents, they spoke fluent Spanish.
They still do, but when it came to growing up,
they didn't teach us Spanish on a regular basis.
And I think it was because
they moved us to
a predominantly non-Latino area.
You know, a middle class Mexican-American family,
they wanted their kids to have equal opportunity
with all of the other kids that were in the school.
So, they didn't want us to have accents.
They didn't want us to carry what they thought
might be excess baggage that they had growing up.
- In our family everybody spoke Spanish,
and when it came down to the children,
they wanted to prepare us for the situation
we were gonna be going into.
But when we tried to speak Spanish,
it was kind of funny to them, and then they would--
- They'd make fun of us.
- They would laugh, and then we were like,
"Oh, forget that.
"I'm never gonna speak Spanish."
- So, I wanted to bring my nani in
to talk a little bit about how she brought up
her kids, my dad, with Spanish.
- When I started school, and I didn't know
how to ask my teacher to go to the bathroom.
So I may pee in my 20's.
So I said, "If I ever have kids,
"they're gonna learn English."
So I taught my three kids English first,
but I did speak to them in Spanish
'cause my parents spoke Spanish.
- So, how do you feel about me learning Spanish?
- Well, you knew it, Maya, when you were
going to high school, but you just didn't keep at it.
- I lost it.
So there were a lot of reasons why they didn't teach me.
I can't dwell on that because it's out of my control.
The only thing that I can control right now
is how much I want to learn.
The first thing I did was search for tutors.
I finally found a tutoring company called Strommen Inc.
and explained to them what I wanted to do,
and they were down for it.
So they set me up with one of their tutors.
His name is Yoan.
- She's third or fourth generation Mexican-American,
and so there's already some kind of underlying connection
and lots of structures already built
into her mind linguistically.
And it becomes easier to teach these people Spanish
because they're kind of attuned to it already.
The language, in order to learn it,
just like when you use it, you have to be very chill.
You have to be calm, and be receptive
to all kinds of things.
- Class number one was the basics.
I already knew how to say majority of these things.
Like, I'm working, I'm hungry, I'm a woman,
and oh, actually I got that from Gadiel.
Just got done from my first class.
How did I do?
- It was good.
I've seen all kinds of things over the years,
and this was not bad at all.
Somos bien.
- I was really surprised how much I knew.
It's so weird because I feel like I'm working out
a muscle right now that has not been active for very long.
My challenge is going to be pronouncing things.
See, that's all I can.
I can't even finish it.
After the first couple of classes, I forgot how much I knew.
Everything just came back to me,
and I was like boom, boom, boom, yes.
I know this present tense.
It's a beautiful Sunday, and I should be out
swimming in the pool, but I am studying.
Been writing out flashcards all day.
My tutor will be very happy with me, though.
I've also started to label everything around the house.
In order to efficiently learn,
I had to practice every single day
for about an hour and a half.
This even meant on my days off.
(upbeat music)
(speaking in foreign language)
My house is old and big.
(speaking in foreign language)
All I wanna do is sleep, but I gotta keep going.
I gotta keep doing the thing.
- So we've finished basically the first section
with the present tense, so next time we're basically
just gonna have a full on one-hour conversation.
And the whole purpose of it is for you to prove to yourself
and to me essentially that you're ready to move on,
that you can take the challenge of the next tense.
So (speaks in foreign language).
- Oh, shit.
I have my first Spanish exam on Monday.
Ugh.
I needed help.
Who could help me practice for this test?
It's almost like I needed team Latinos to help...
Oh yeah.
Hours before my first test,
and I have Julissa here.
She's helping me.
- I feel like you know what you're saying.
You have it.
You know what you're about to say.
So I think it's just to stop second guessing yourself
and know that even if you say it wrong, whatever,
you fucked up, but you're saying it.
So, don't do that.
Spit it, because I feel like that's the easier way to learn.
And that's by fucking up.
- I asked Maya to go through
the 12 fundamentals of the present tense.
Well, the 12 fundamentals of the language in general,
and she basically aced it.
She got like let's say a 95, 96, 97 out of 100.
There was like minor stumbles,
and then that basically to me said that she was capable
of going forward into the past tense.
- [Maya] Now we're learning past tense,
which means everything changes.
Stuff like I ate, I talked to her, I went to work, and KLOK.
Oh wait, that's not--
- As we go forward, this starts to get
heavy and complicated now, because not only are we dealing
with pretérito, which has a lot of irregularities,
probably the most, we're also expanding
the vocabulary really quickly.
So, this is the part where you need patience and discipline.
- I'm learning past tense,
and I'm really struggling with it.
- Um...
The thing that's tripping me up is the fact
that I am taking everything so slowly.
(speaking in foreign language)
- There were a lot of things that I kept
getting wrong because the endings had changed.
The tense had changed, and I was just like, "Whoa."
Coming up with the things to say right off the bat
from the top of my head is really hard for me,
and I think it's because I haven't been practicing as much.
I have a lot going on.
I mean, working a full time job here,
I love what I do, but it's also like I have
to also fit in time to learn a language.
I'm just like exhausted.
(laughs)
And frustrated.
I think the self doubt is setting in.
We all have this weird, darkness within us
whenever we start something new.
A voice telling us that we're not good enough,
we're not talented, I can't do it, who do we think we are?
I think right now that darkness is tryna creep up.
I realize that this entire thing
is not just about me learning a language.
I have to actually address the fact
that I am afraid of looking dumb.
It wasn't how fast I was picking it up,
or how my accent sounded, it was can I get out
of my own way in order to succeed?
I sat down with Gadiel and had a real talk with him.
- You have it there with you,
but it's like there's something within you
that's stopping you.
That's the truth.
You have it 'cause you understand it.
I talk to you in Spanish all the time.
You hear me speak Spanish all the time,
and what you're feeling right now is perfectly normal.
Once you break that barrier and you go right at it,
I think you're gonna get this shit down.
- Yeah.
That's good dad advice.
Thank you. - I love you.
- He brought up a lot of things
that I was like, "You're right.
"I do that."
So I knew I just had to do it.
I needed to practice.
This meant talking to my coworkers more.
- Girl, I got all that.
- Little hair.
(laughing)
- This language is your language,
and the way that you communicate
no one can take that away from you.
You're trying.
You're learning.
So, I'm happy that you're learning.
I don't think that you should ever give up.
I think it's so cool that you're like...
(laughing)
- Ew, Nani!
(laughing)
- I finally started to feel
more comfortable and confident in my Spanish.
I started to sing in Spanish.
(singing in foreign language)
I even spoke Spanish in a Pero Like video.
Jorge and Jenna are getting a divorce?
Well, it's down to the end
of my Spanish journey, and am I fluent?
No.
But I'm okay with that because I thought
by becoming fluent in Spanish was going
to solve all of my problems.
But it was more so about reconnecting with my culture
and pushing myself past my comfort zones
so that I could learn.
It was an emotional journey.
This Spanish journey is only the beginning.
I'm excited to continue to learn and to fail
because I realized in those fails and in those mistakes
something beautiful came out of it.
(speaking in foreign language)
You liked it.
(upbeat music)