#instead of eng. to get me better at Spanish and Portuguese

[zeb-z]

THERE ARE LIVE TRANSLATIONS IN CELLBITS STREAM TO ENGLISH THIS WHOLE TIME?????

[watmalik]

Lol I can’t speak for Carlos/Rafa but I was born and raised in a Spanish speaking country and learned both Eng and Spanish in a very intense way since I was 3. I spoke more Spanish/Spanglish out of school bc the school was very strict when it came to English (will be given a detention if I spoke Spanish out of my two Spanish classes lol) and I lived with my dad so he wouldn’t understand me if I spoke English. I moved to the US when I was 16 to a state where Spanish is rarely spoken. Currently, I’m 21 and going to a uni in the same state and I do tend to speak Spanish when frustrated——- mainly about something I did or didn’t do bc I’m very type A! I will basically cuss myself out. The reason I moved was mainly bc of language, I always wanted to speak English in a full time manner..

Aside from the phone calls I get from my dad, and tutoring Spanish to Spanish majors and minors as a side hustle, I rarely get to speak it. I do talk to other Hispanic students within school but we don’t have a similar bg since most of them learn Spanish from their parents instead of actually learning it like I did/being exposed more to it/knowing the so many rules and write it, etc. I like to joke around that I was traumatized with Spanish bc I had to basically memorize every rule and conjugation since the age of 7 until I moved 😂. Actually whilst growing up, English was easier for me to learn, fun fact it was the first language I learned how to read in the first grade bc I found it easier than Spanish and I still do!

Now, I tend to go back and forth or even use loaner words when my brain is too tired to function or when I’m nervous my accent comes out too which causes anger. I go home every summer to visit my dad and I will have the same issues with Spanish, but the “problem” gets fixed once I had settled a couple of days. I do go back and forth (speak Spanglish) when I’m on the phone with friends/my siblings who had the same schooling as I did since they will understand.

If I had to guess how Rafa handles it I bet it is better than me lol. I had a frenemy growing up whose first language was Portuguese and brother spoke English and Spanish like it was nothing. His Spanish was seriously so good! And he spoke it with such ease since it’s easier to learn Spanish when you know Portuguese (but it’s harder for Spanish speakers to learn Portuguese—ugh I hate language). I say frenemy bc at the time I was actually taking online classes to learn Portuguese (self teaching) but ended up becoming very frustrated with learning another language (4) that I decided 3 was enough for me. I see my life as a competition and i had failed because I had to be better than him. In the words of Michael Jordan, I took it personally.

Answered this bc I’m minoring in English and I took a linguistic class last year, very fascinating! It made me reminisce things from my childhood and growing up learning 3 languages!

Besties I am having so many Tarlos language thoughts tonight. So many things I wanna know. Does Carlos devolve into frustrated Spanish sometimes? What language did he speak at home growing up? I would LOVE to hear Rafa's thoughts on this, given that his first language is Portuguese. I read an article for my Spanish translation class this year that talked about Spanish speakers in the US in terms of Learners (primary language is Spanish, learning English, usually immigrants) Straddlers (flip back and forth between English and Spanish) and Navigators (primary language is English, still speaks Spanish.) This was in the context of advertising and I have had it in the back of my head since, since I would be considered a Learner in Arabic and somewhere between a Learner and Straddler in Spanish, with English as my primary language. Anyway Spanish major brain go brrrrrrr and I really want to know the linguistic makeup of the Reyes family.