Speaking Spanish Helpful?

Nurses General Nursing

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Do you find that speaking Spanish is helpful in your job? I am considering starting to learn it on my own (have been for quite awhile) and was wondering if all of you here think it would be useful or just a waste of time?

You can't argue the benefits of knowing spanish in the US today, but it doesn't seem fair to be forced into learning someone elses native language when they are the ones immigrating over here. I learned a foreign language in high school, but while my whole family wanted me to take spanish because of how 'useful' it would be, I never wanted to learn it. Its an ugly language to me, I have no want to learn it...and when you don't want to learn something you usually don't. I picked french, not quite as useful, but it was fun for me. If someone wants to look down on me in the future for not speaking spanish that's fine, I'll just continually wonder why they won't learn english.

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You can't argue the benefits of knowing spanish in the US today, but it doesn't seem fair to be forced into learning someone elses native language when they are the ones immigrating over here. I learned a foreign language in high school, but while my whole family wanted me to take spanish because of how 'useful' it would be, I never wanted to learn it. Its an ugly language to me, I have no want to learn it...and when you don't want to learn something you usually don't. I picked french, not quite as useful, but it was fun for me. If someone wants to look down on me in the future for not speaking spanish that's fine, I'll just continually wonder why they won't learn english.

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Specializes in OB, lactation.

Spanish Ed was my first degree, but I'm really rusty now because I only taught for two years, around '92-93. We have tons of Latinos/migrant workers in my area and speaking Spanish is very helpful in medical fields. My main problem is that I can speak and write better than I can understand/hear, unless they have very clear/educated/bookish Spanish. Also I didn't learn any of my Spanish from Mexicans so it's a different dialect that I hear around me now. It usually comes back to me fairly well when I'm immersed though.

PS..I agree about the "butter" sound for learning to trill R's... repeat "butter" several times in a row and it sort of replicates it. Although, if the goal is strictly to communicate you could probably never trill the first R and you'd still get your point across, so prioritize the vocab.

We had many Hmong, but unfortunately, the only people we had to interpret for them was their family members, and you always prayed they understood.

Have you read The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down by Fadiman?

We had to read it in my BSN program this semester. Great book, I would have liked to have read it even if it wasn't an assignment. It is about the Hmong and miscommunication but the main idea applies to any culture.

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this has been a very useful thread for me! Thanks to everyone who has contributed! We plan on moving to California after I graduate, and hearing that speaking spanish would be an asset, that is definitely something I will work on!

Thanks!

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
You can't argue the benefits of knowing spanish in the US today, but it doesn't seem fair to be forced into learning someone elses native language when they are the ones immigrating over here. I learned a foreign language in high school, but while my whole family wanted me to take spanish because of how 'useful' it would be, I never wanted to learn it. Its an ugly language to me, I have no want to learn it...and when you don't want to learn something you usually don't. I picked french, not quite as useful, but it was fun for me. If someone wants to look down on me in the future for not speaking spanish that's fine, I'll just continually wonder why they won't learn english.

How do you know they aren't learning English? Very few Spanish speaking people are refusing to learn English. That non-English speaking patient just might be trying to learn, but hasn't. But when they are in the hospital they haven't learned completely at that moment.

But more and more it is becoming increasingly unnecessary for them to learn English in certain parts of the US, like Miami. I swear you don't have to know English to live and function there. Weird, it's like a foreign country. :)

Who is forcing you to learn Spanish?

Anyway, what I find frustrating about Spanish is the danged masucline and feminine nouns. Same as French. Makes it a difficult language to learn.

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Great thread -- I've been debating whether to take Spanish this summer, fall, and Spanish for med professionals in next Spring. Having read this, I'm doing it.

thx,

Mr_D

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I am thankful to all of you for your responses. They have just solidified what I think I already knew in the back of my head!

Thanks again!

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Specializes in ICU, CM, Geriatrics, Management.
... it doesn't seem fair to be forced into learning someone elses native language...

Incorrect assumption.

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I, for one, find Spanish a beautiful language. They have many "soft" sounds that give it almost a gentleness that is not found in English. One of my natively-speaking Spanish friends tells us her name, and it is far more beautiful in Spanish than how we say it in English.

Some of these soft sounds are the rolled 'r', the way that "d" is pronounced, which is much more like a very hard "th" (or is it soft? What linguists call hard I always seem to think are soft, and vice versa).

In learning a language, one of the things that I think is the most fun (and the least taught) is the "music" of that language. In a French tape course I looked at, they talked about how the French break their syllables in a different place than we do. The French break syllables, if I recall correctly, on consonants, where we break syllables in English on vowels.

The difference can be heard in this way:

Say: Mississippi. You say "Mi-si-si-pi" in English.

But, if you speak with a French accent, you say "Mis-sis-sip-i"; you can

hear the "French accent" when you say it this way.

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ooooh guys, I'm just getting tingly thinking about dh and I being able to speak spanish to each other and not have the kids know what we are talking about! LOL! Fun...guess I'd better get learning! Anyone know of any good starter websites?

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Specializes in tele, ICU.

this is exactly why i am spending 2 months in mexico this summer before starting nursing school.

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Google "learning Spanish". Better yet, use the advanced search in google and restrict the sites to those that end in ".edu."

The web is full of language resources. The community college I attend has a Spanish-intensive (1 year in 6 weeks) course this summer that I'm planning on taking.

I bought the Rosetta Stone for Russian, but wasn't that happy with it. Russian has a strong grammatical underpinning, and it is a lot easier, I think, to learn the grammatical rules along with learning how to say sentences--otherwise you are learning how to "say" things without understanding why they are said differently in different contexts (when you combine both gender and grammatical endings, it can be pretty complex to tease out.) I learned some vocabulary, but I discovered some of what I consider to be the most basic grammar not covered within "volume I".

The "self-study" courses I've liked the best have been the Barron's, because they are the ones that have emphasized the phonetic differences, and bring to awareness the kinds of sounds that are in a particular language but are not in English. If I recall correctly, the Spanish course emphasizes some of the different sounds found in Spanish but not in English.

But...it's been a while...so there are probably language learner discussion boards that might have better advice.

Have fun!

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