I have a 900-day Duolingo streak in Spanish. It’s not perfect. There’s usually a day or two when a streak freeze comes in handy. Nevertheless, over two years of my life have been devoted to keeping the streak alive. Am I learning a lot? Eh. Am I retaining stuff I already know? Sure. It certainly came in handy during Welcome Week when every single session required a fun fact about yourself. While spending less than five minutes a day on Duolingo may not be the most effective way to learn a language, I still believe that learning another language is extremely important.
I grew up in an English-speaking household. In high school, I was always jealous of my friends who grew up learning both Spanish and English. It could be because I hated my high school Spanish class, but growing up, learning the language seemed easier than going to that class. I loved discovering the connections between the roots in Spanish and English words (part of the reason I’m an English major). I quickly found satisfaction in being able to translate Spanish billboards/signs/posters/etc.
Then I started noticing the subtle stigmas of knowing a second language, especially when the weaker language was English. It seemed as though there was a secondary treatment towards my peers whose parents didn’t speak any English. As if the lack of them knowing English made them lacking in everything. I noticed this especially in speakers who spoke Spanish at home and learned English at school. My cousins, who spoke English at home and learned Spanish at school, didn’t get that same treatment. Their accent was “normal.”
Despite that, I still wanted to learn the “secret code” that my friends conversed in so I could be a part of the conversation. Therefore, I started my Duolingo streak. I occasionally switched languages to mix it up, usually switching to the native languages of my grandparents: Swedish and Czech. However, I was never around anyone who spoke that (my grandparents are now deceased), so I continued with my Spanish course. I paid extra attention in the very Spanish class I hated, trying to find patterns within the language that could be applied elsewhere. One aspect of the class that exceeded Duolingo’s capabilities was the speaking portion. I literally cannot remember the last time I haven’t hit skip on a speaking lesson on Duolingo. A real human teacher could actually correct my accents and pronunciation that Duolingo couldn’t.
Now I’m here. I haven’t mastered Spanish by any means. Those 900 days times the 2.5 minutes typically spent on lessons do not add up to much. However, as an aspiring educator who recognizes that roughly 18% of the US population speaks Spanish (with a significantly higher rate in the Crete community alone), I realize not learning, or at least attempting to learn, a language that a significant portion of my community speaks is borderline selfish. Who am I to expect others to learn my native language if I’m not willing to learn theirs?
Also, if you have a Duolingo streak more impressive than mine (which I doubt), send me proof.
