I often wonder how I speak Spanish at all. I have not had any classes since high school, which got me as far as a B minus could take a student. And then here I am after a few months of being in Spanish speaking countries and I sound quite bad and my grammar would make a high school Spanish teacher cry, but I understand a lot and can communicate surprisingly well. How it happens I do not know, and if I learn this way it will prove that we can all learn as a child like we all learned our native language as a child. I have heard many people tell me that I have a gift for learning languages and it makes me laugh, because I do not know who told them this lie and how it continues I do not know, but in truth I was in special English classes up until 9th grade and still have so many problems properly expressing myself in my native language. Spanish is my fourth language to learn but that means nothing; language learning is just as hard for the first one as it is for the third and fourth language.
I think one thing that I have over most language learners is my endurance of pain. I can spend hours and hours enduring a language not understanding more than a dozen words. I also really love being around people, and can spend hours and hours talking to people with my dozen words, where I have seen many students not venture out into the streets unless they can speak in perfect sentences and the moment they say their two sentences they head back to the lab to work for hours on a few more sentences. I just go for it and do not worry about grammar, I do not worry about past tense and I must confess I know no one who can have as many conversations with as dozen words like me.
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