As a student with a Spanish minor, I have had the privilege of learning a new language and becoming close to fluency. I hope to be fluent by the time I graduate next semester. However, even being this close to speaking a new language naturally has given me a new perspective on language and the way I speak in English.

Along with my Spanish minor, I am also fortunate enough to work in a restaurant in which the chefs are all from Mexico. This gives me the opportunity to practice my Spanish skills every shift and gain comfortability with my speaking abilities. They are also some of the nicest people I know and are probably my favorite people I work with.

The interesting thing I have noticed since I began speaking with them in Spanish, is a change in the way I speak in Spanish compared to how I may speak in English. Typically, when I am around people I'm not close with I'm on the more timid side. I'm usually a little quieter and reserved and let the people I'm with do most of the talking.

However, when I'm speaking with my Mexican co-workers I am much more engaged in the conversation and we have a more even conversation. I am much more forward and seem to have more to say. We make jokes and laugh with each other. Another unforeseen benefit of learning Spanish is being able to talk about someone without them knowing (all in good fun, of course).

I did not even realize this was happening until I took a linguistics course which mentioned that this can be a common phenomenon. Some people, whether they are raised bilingually, or formally learn a second language, like me, can have somewhat different personalities in each language.

They can be very similar to myself, being timider in one language and much more extroverted in another language. People who know three languages may even have a different personality in each.

This has even led to a change in my participation in class. In my beginning Spanish classes, I rarely participated and was usually quiet in class and was nervous about my speaking abilities.

Now, as I sit in intermediate Spanish II, I find myself trying to answer every question. I completely take over the conversations we have in groups, for better or worse. I also have much more confidence than my classmates when it comes time for our speaking competence tests.

I would never have imagined myself being so involved in any class, let alone a Spanish class where a few semesters ago I rarely spoke and never raised my hand.

I also saw a difference in the way I thought about what I was saying in English, too. Instead of just firing off sentences without thinking, I thought about the grammar of what I was saying. How would I be able to translate this?

Or, this word has such a different connotation in Spanish, I wonder how it came to mean this in English. This really had me thinking before I spoke, in both languages. I saw this as a benefit and helped me become more precise with my words than previously.

I know some people shy away from learning a new language and just take the three or four required foreign language classes for their major if their major even requires taking a language. Learning a new language is difficult, and with English being one of the most popular languages in the world why bother learning a new language?

Thankfully I took a professor who was engaging in class and showed me how incredible learning a new language can be. The benefits of it are not what I expected. I have been able to make new friends as well as open doors to traveling to other countries and speaking the native tongue. It has changed my way of thinking for the better.