Honestly, I can't believe I actually finished this. When people asked me "is there one thing you're worried you won't finish in time?" this was always the first thing that I said. To be honest, I didn't really anticipate just how long the Bible would take to read. I have never read it all the way through in English. Brian thought it was completely ridiculous that I would read it the first time through in Spanish-- and I definitely understand why. In some ways, though, I thought it would be kind of a cool experience. At this point, I am able to understand the majority of what I read in Spanish, so it wasn't as if the whole thing was jargon. And even though I haven't read parts of the Bible, there are many parts that I have heard over and over again throughout my life, and it's a completely different experience to read it in a different language. More than anything, though, I was hoping to improve my Spanish and I felt like reading an incredibly long book that I was relatively familiar with would help.
I have wanted to be fluent in Spanish for a really really long time. I've been studying Spanish since high school, and have always wanted to take more classes than I was ever able to. My first high school offered four years of Spanish and I started taking classes my freshman year so that I could make sure I was able fit them all in before I graduated. But during my junior year I decided to transfer to a smaller high school, and I was disappointed to find out that they only offered two years of Spanish-- both of which I had already taken. The guidance counselor tried to find an online course for me, but was never able to.
When I started college at St Olaf, I planned to take both Spanish and Russian classes. Unfortunately, I had to drop out of my first semester of Spanish because I had registered for more credits than I could handle (something that I think I've done every single semester in college-- I have a habit of being incredibly over-ambitious...) and I chose to finish my semester of Russian instead. By the time I transferred to Bethel my sophomore year, I had already committed to double majoring (in music and international business) and then later chose to minor in sacred music, as well. Because of this, my class schedule was almost entirely coursework for my majors. Even so, while my international business major only required me to take two language courses, I was able to squeeze in extra semester of Spanish before I was forced to graduate. When I say forced, I mean they sent me a letter saying I wouldn't get financial aid if I returned the next semester, since I had already taken too many credits. So I literally could not go back if I wanted to! If I had been able to stay any longer, though, I was 100% sure I would have taken as many Spanish related courses as possible-- not only because it was one of the things I was most interested in learning, but also because being fluent in a language is a huge factor in whether or not you ever get an international business job.
Even though I didn't take nearly as many classes as I would have liked to, I still was able to find ways outside of school to work on Spanish. Throughout most of college I worked at Applebees. While I worked there I was able to befriend a lot of the Mexican cooks, who taught me new words and helped me develop the ability to converse in Spanish. During my senior year of college, I also was able to spend a couple weeks in Nicaragua, where I taught English at elementary schools. Since almost no one was able to speak English, I was able to learn a great deal of Spanish, even though I was only there for a short amount of time.
When I graduated, however, and started to work at Wells Fargo there were little to no opportunities to speak Spanish. I didn't work directly with many people who spoke Spanish, unlike before, and most of the people I saw regularly knew very minimal Spanish. I've heard many times that the best way to learn a language is surrounding yourself with people who speak it-- for instance, moving to a country that speaks Spanish. Since that wasn't and still isn't going to be an option for a while, I figured the next best thing would be to read Spanish books.
One of my Spanish professors at Bethel had required us to buy a Spanish Bible at the beginning of the class, but we never actually read any of it. It literally sat on my shelf for the longest time and every time I saw it I thought it would be a really good thing to read through. I even remember telling a few people I was planning to do it right after I graduated. The look on one of my friend's faces after I told him this stuck with me for years afterwards. It basically said "Yeah right. You are idealistic and unrealistic. You are all talk. You're never going to do it." I was really offended by this, and it really motivated me to actually do it. So this last year I decided I would prove him wrong.
The biggest problem is that I waited until about January to start reading it. And my deadline was set for the end of June. I didn't realize (until Brian told me) that most people struggle to read the English version in a year! And I had about six months. So I set up a reading schedule-- and ended up falling behind miserably every time I had a vacation or got sick or something else came up. Finally, I decided to stop following the schedule and just read as much as I could at a time. Some days I literally read it for the majority of the day. I was just so determined to finish!
And about one week ago I finally did! Did I gain what I was hoping from this experience? Most definitely! While I understood the majority of it, towards the beginning there were a few passages where I had a hard time understanding what was going on. Luckily, my dad had read through Genesis-1 Samuel with me when I was younger, so I could piece together what was happening based on what I already knew. But it was really exciting when, over time, I began to understand almost every single word. My vocabulary has definitely, noticeably grown.
Brian makes me fun of me, because I did learn a lot of words that I will probably never actually use. Like priest, and holy sacrifice, and cow fat. Although one day I went to the grocery store with him, he showed me this animal part and asked if I knew what it was. I didn't know the English word, but underneath it said "grasa" in Spanish-- which I had learned from reading the Old Testament: "fat." It was pretty funny! Besides that, though, I definitely learned a lot of words and the correct way to phrase certain things and even a few grammar rules that I hadn't been aware of before. Would I say that I am fluent in Spanish? Not even close! There is so much left for me to learn. But this was a huge step in the right direction.
While it has been way more difficult than it should have been to take Spanish courses, I am proud at how far I've come on my own. More than anything, it's been interesting to see how much incentive I have to keep learning and making progress without teachers or professors pushing me to. It's definitely the first time in my life that that hasn't been the case. Hopefully if I keep working hard enough, I will be able to consider myself "fluent" someday. So far I'm well on my way to reaching that goal! :)
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