So, this Spanish interview thing came up. Wasn’t exactly planning for it, you know?
One day I’m just scrolling through job descriptions, and bam, “Spanish interview component.” My Spanish? Let’s just say it was taking a long siesta, buried under years of neglect. My first reaction was, “Nah, skip it.” But then, something clicked. Why not dust it off? Could be a good kick in the pants.
So, where do you even start with resurrecting a language?
I went straight for the old school stuff. Dug out my dusty college textbooks. You know the ones, with the really cheesy dialogues? “Hola, ¿cómo estás?” “Muy bien, gracias.” Yeah, those. But hey, grammar rules are grammar rules. I just needed a refresher, a way to get the basic sentence structures back into my head. Started from page one, like a total beginner again.
Then came the speaking part. This is always the kicker, isn’t it? Talking to yourself feels weird, man. But I did it.
- I’d just narrate my day. “Okay, I’m making coffee now.” But in Spanish. “Estoy haciendo café.” Sounded like a robot at first.
- Fired up some old Spanish songs I used to like. Tried to sing along. Pretty sure the cat wasn’t impressed.
- Found some YouTube videos. Just people talking, interviews, vlogs. Started slow, then tried to keep up with faster stuff. It’s amazing what you can pick up just by listening.
But then there’s the work talk. My holiday Spanish for ordering tacos wasn’t going to cut it. “Can you discuss your previous project’s deliverables in Spanish?” Uh oh. So, I started making lists. Like, actual handwritten lists. “Project,” “team,” “deadline,” “challenge,” “solution.” All that corporate jazz. Wrote them down, English on one side, Spanish on the other. Carried them around. Looked at them whenever I had a spare minute. Felt like I was back in high school cramming for a test.
I even tried to switch my internal monologue to Spanish sometimes. When I was cooking, or walking the dog. “El perro quiere caminar más rápido.” Silly, maybe, but it kept the language active in my brain, instead of just being a “study subject.”
The mock interview was a reality check.
Got a friend, whose Spanish is way better than mine, to grill me. That was… an experience. I stumbled. I paused. I definitely said some gibberish. My brain would just freeze, searching for a word that wasn’t there. But my friend was cool about it. Said, “Look, don’t aim for perfection. Just get your point across. Use simpler words if you have to. Talk around the word you can’t find.” That was actually super helpful advice.
So, the actual interview day. The Spanish part. Yeah, I was sweating a bit. But less than I thought I would. I just kept thinking, “Slow down. Breathe.” I tried to use the phrases I’d practiced. I know I made mistakes. Probably butchered some verb conjugations spectacularly. But, I could understand their questions, for the most part. And I managed to string together answers. They weren’t poetry, that’s for sure. But they were answers.
Did I get the job? Nope. And honestly, I don’t think my less-than-perfect Spanish was the main reason. But the whole thing, this dive back into Spanish? Totally worth it. It’s funny how you think you can’t do something, and then you just… start. Little by little. And you find out you can do more than you thought. My Spanish is still a work in progress, always will be. But it’s awake now, not sleeping. And that’s a pretty good feeling. Might even try another one of these Spanish interviews, just for kicks.
