When I was younger, my parents would go out multiple times a year on the weekends and my younger brother and I were left with a trustworthy babysitter. We switched babysitters around a few times but most of the time, my parents would stick with the same babysitter until some factor showed up where we had to change. But I remember this one particular lady was in a Hispanic family and had just enough English to get around easily and talk to us. She had a daughter who was a few years younger than me but we got around really well and a son who was around the same age as my brother so we were all set. She also had a daughter who was in high school as well…I was a tween at the time so I was at the point where I was starting to think that the younger daughter was too young to hang out with but the older one was too old for me so I was usually doing what my brother was. They all spoke fluent English and I would sometimes ask for my friend (younger daughter) to translate for me if our babysitter was trying to tell us something but couldn’t quite get it across.
But I digress. So anyway, long story short, we happened to be around relatives and friends of this family who spoke a lot of Spanish. They would even bring us to parties and big events like quinceaneras. I was surrounded by people who spoke Spanish when I was with them, and I couldn’t help but feel sort of left out. I remember getting cake one time and one caterer lady asked me something in Spanish but I just said yes having no idea what she had said to me. I felt so left out that I started wishing that we just had a “normal” babysitter (before you guys come for me, I was really young and didn’t know any better. Looking back, obviously, I was very dumb. I never said this out loud, I just bore with it but obviously, this isn’t a very good thing to think). However, I wish we stayed because I never really realized how much I loved the language and the culture until I was no longer experiencing it in person.
But anyway, our babysitter promised she’d teach us some Spanish but she never got around to it. By then, there had been an incident and we’d also moved 30 minutes away so it wasn’t as convenient for us.
However, I was still inspired to do so. After changing to a more local babysitter, (which was a completely different environment…still love her though) I still grew up thinking that I really wanted to learn this language. It was also extremely common where I lived (it is in general in the U.S.) so I thought it would be one of the most beneficial things. Also, my dad was a successful small business owner of a tree care company and about 80% of his small crew had always been members of the Spanish-speaking community. So, what did I do? I decided to take as much Spanish as possible. I took Spanish I in 8th grade as a high school credit course, Spanish II freshman year, and so on, and planning on taking AP Spanish V next year (senior year). I even want to minor in Spanish along with some sort of business degree. It isn’t just something that I do because it looks good on college resumes (which, it does), on job applications, or using it in daily/work life, which of course, I see as a plus. I’m learning it because I truly enjoy the language and the culture. If I didn’t, I would’ve stopped at Spanish II, which is usually the number of years of foreign language that you’d take in high school for colleges that do require some years of foreign language. I also love that it’s something that I can easily say that I’m better at my family in doing because none of my closest relatives speak Spanish well. 
. The first foreign language I learned at school was English, when I was 11 years old. I remember our teacher being very, very strict! No mistakes allowed! And of course we hated it in that moment but then we were grateful to have learned all the past tenses by heart 
. swim, swam, swum, right?
. Où sont les toilettes ?
.
Still a great sadness of mine, but I know I’ll learn Turkish one day!