A few weeks ago, I declared a Foreign Languages major in Spanish and Korean. I’m not certain where I’m going with it, but I think I’d like to teach, interpret, work for the media, or maybe serve as a diplomat or work for an international organization (again, not narrowed down in the slightest…) I would like to live abroad, maybe go to grad school abroad as well. Who knows, I may end up settling down outside of the United States?

To get to any of those places, there are some things I need to figure out, or at least work on, some skill sets that I need to develop.

The skills that I’m working on don’t involve nunchucks, but I feel like languages can be as complicated to figure out at times…

I grew up with a family that only spoke English, and I didn’t start learning languages until the last part of middle school. I really got rolling in high school, which is when I fell in love with Spanish.

Here at Scripps (well, technically at Claremont McKenna) I started Korean, which is simultaneously incredibly similar and different. It’s sometimes hard to keep the three languages straight, even when I can’t say a whole lot in Korean (yet). I tried to say in a Korean verb today with a Spanish verb ending conjugation. That was interesting.

What I really need to work on is expanding confidence and vocabulary. Because Korean is so new, I’m really working hard to take it off of the page (as well as learning more vocabulary and grammar). I’m much more coherent on paper, but I know that I have to be able to speak as well.

As far as Spanish goes, I need to keep expanding my vocabulary. It’s hard to know where to start. Like Korean though, it simply requires practice and experience.

Though I have yet to make it to a Spanish language table, I’ve been attending the Korean table every week to work on building confidence (and vocabulary skills!).

If I were to do any of the things I’m thinking about for careers, I really need to study up, or rather practice and immerse myself in situations where my language knowledge is tested and improved.

It can be really frustrating to get stuck on a tough reading for class or a near-impossible to pronounce word. It takes patience, but also an outside commitment to help with breaking these barriers. With Korean, I think of being able to watch K-dramas with my sister without reading subtitles, or emailing my friend in Seoul in Korean. For Spanish, it’s going to (hopefully someday) visit my friends in Spain, Argentina, and Mexico or speak easily with my high school Spanish teacher en español.

But sometimes you have to start with the small steps. Things don’t happen overnight, but with work over time. For now, I’m proud of the little things, but I’ll keep taking bigger steps forward.

안녕하세요! 마올리예요. 대학교 일학년이에요. ¡Hola! Me llamo Olivia Truesdale. Soy una estudiante de primer año. Hello! I’m Olivia Truesdale. I am a first year.