“Being able to speak Spanish is a tool for the economic empowerment of our youth of this country.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. Those are the words of the Spanish ambassador, Celsa Nuño, as she presented Spanish-language courses, books, desks and other educational materials to a school in Ironshore recently.

Ambassador Nuño challenges the Ministry of Education to make Spanish a compulsory subject in schools, right from the primary grades. Again, I couldn’t agree more.

This country is situated in a sea of Spanish – two of the countries closest to Jamaica are Hispanic – between them Cuba and the Dominican Republic have some 20 million people, not to mention the millions more from Mexico on down through Central American right to Tierra del Fuego, the end of South America. Although many of the countries in the region are, like Jamaica, also primary producers, they nevertheless provide a natural place for the development of ties – economic as well as cultural.

In this modern, inter-connected world of ours, being limited to one language is a definite disadvantage, even if that language is the ubiquitous, widely spoken and extremely flexible native tongue of ours – English. Being the most widely spoken language in the world (although Mandarin has more actual speakers), it makes life much easier than it otherwise would be for the unilingual English-speaking traveller or businessperson. You can wander into a sleepy town well off the beaten track in some African backwoods and find an inn-keeper who speaks passable English. A tourist attraction in a remote Pacific island poses no problems of communication – the vendor in the crafts market will drive the same hard bargain as the English-speaking fellow wearing traditional dress in a souq in Tunisia.

You can find bilingual public signs and advertising displays – in English as well as the native language – in places as diverse as Japan, Oman and China. In the Netherlands, some 86 per cent of the population speaks English, and often very well. But then, English is compulsory in high school and some elementary schools; the average Dutch child will have spent at least eight years learning English. In Europe, they say an ordinary person speaks two or three languages; a well-educated person speaks five or six.

But being a native English-speaker can be a disadvantage in many situations, as the foreigner with whom you are negotiating knows your language as well as hers, and you can miss nuances and subtleties when she confers with her compatriots in their native language. And the English-speaking countries are generally not very insistent on including foreign language training in their education systems.

Dismissive attitude

When I attended high school in the 1950s, French was the preferred foreign language, offered for the students considered to be brighter. Those thought to be a bit slower were taught Spanish, and the attitude we picked up was that it was a bit lower on the scale, spoken merely by a bunch of Latin Americans. In both cases, as with the Latin we were encouraged to take, instruction was heavy on grammar and syntax and light on speech practice, which even then seemed to me to be getting the whole thing backwards. After all, language is, first and foremost, about speech.

As a reporter, I would sometimes be sent to a Spanish-speaking country, and even though I had picked up a bit of Spanish and it was quite easy to find English speakers, being essentially unilingual put me at a disadvantage. One day during the Falklands/Malvinas war, I went to a broad boulevard in Buenos Aires where a group of women gathered every day to knit sweaters, mittens and caps for the soldiers on the cold, miserable islands. They were strong supporters of the cause, and the foreign minister dropped by to thank them for their support. I wanted to interview the minister, but didn’t feel my Spanish was up to the task, and had to forgo the fortuitous opportunity.

On several occasions during that trip I would be in a taxi with the driver chattering away and frustratingly, understanding him but unable to respond as naturally and instinctively as I would in my own language. Another roadblock was the fact that, despite the acrimony whipped up over the Falklands matter, Argentines are a nation of Anglophiles. An official at the Canadian embassy had put me in touch with a member of the old gentility and the lady treated me to a delightful afternoon, speaking impeccable English. When she offered tea I asked if it would be yerba maté, the native Argentine brew, to which she replied “When you are offered tea in an Argentine household, you get tea”, and she poured me an English brand. I noticed that her bookshelves were filled with English books and I asked why. She explained that she loved to read, and although literary Spanish is beautiful, it is time-consuming to read and she found English much more efficient, so she could get through many more books!

Honouring a prominent Spanish literary figure

Ambassador Nuño’s presentation was on behalf of the Cervantes Institute, a non-profit organisation founded by the government of Spain in 1991 to promote the study of Spanish as a second language. With 54 branches in 20 countries, the institute is named after Spain’s equivalent of Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. His best known work, Don Quixote, is considered the first modern novel and is a classic of Western literature. He has had such an influence on his native language that Spanish is often called La Lengua de Cervantes – the language of Cervantes.

Several visits to Cuba focused my determination to seek formal instruction in the language and add to my earlier efforts at night school. This time I signed up with the Berlitz institute, which teaches languages in the same way as an infant learns – by hearing and repeating words and phrases and gradually widening the vocabulary, the scope and complexity as the student gains proficiency. I recall once, just a few weeks in, when to my very pleasant surprise I found myself discussing high-speed electric trains with the teacher!

I was gratified at my progress when, on a visit to Havana, I met some young people at a university sports field one evening and sat around chatting about all manner of things over many cervezas. On this occasion it went much more easily, and I was really astounded when a young woman asked if I was sure I wasn’t Cuban.

There are many advantages to learning other languages – doing so opens up new channels through which you can communicate with other people, and you can enhance your economic possibilities. But above all, being able to speak other languages provides new windows through which you can see new cultures and enjoy new experiences. And that’s worth all the hours of wrestling with genders, tenses and conjugations.

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca