Blog Post #1

I believe that language is acquired is through hearing whatever language is being spoke around you. My background is Puerto Rican, so I naturally grew up in a Spanish speaking household.  When my parents were younger they had the disadvantage of having English as a second language and they did not want that to be the case for me.  They spoke to me in both English and Spanish by teaching me words in both languages for example "water is agua" and "milk is leche" so I was bilingual as a child.  When I started school I only needed English to communicate so I gradually stopped speaking Spanish at home.  As I got older I found myself still able to understand Spanish, but no longer able to speak it as fluently as I used to, because I was no longer speaking it.  Since being able to speak Spanish was not a requirement for my advancement I just forgot about it.  As I got older I took a Spanish class  for a semester in junior high school but once again I relearned what I needed to know in order to pass the class and once the next semester came along I forgot everything I had learned because it was not being reinforced.  When I got to high school I took Italian for two semesters and because both Spanish and Italian come from Latin they have many words in common.  I not only learned Italian but it also helped me remember more Spanish.  I knew I was going to be traveling to Italy that summer, so I made sure to review my notes once and a while so I would not forget what I had learned.  When we finally traveled to Italy I was the official translator.  Even though that was two summers ago I still remember the language, and I assume that is because I continued reinforcing what I learned.  Now my only problem is that since I did not have a solid foundation with Spanish when I begun learning Italian, I find myself mixing up some of the words. Something I wonder about language is, how long one should study a language before one can have a solid knowledge of it?