¡Hola, yo soy Winson! 🇪🇸

Dear friend,

Hey there, how’s it going? It’s been a super busy month for me, so please forgive me for writing you a shorter letter than usual! 

Earlier this month, I randomly decided to download Duolingo (profile) and started learning Spanish. I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish for a while, mostly because to me Latin culture is such an important part of American identity. Much of today’s music, food, and everything else is so heavily influenced (if not based) around Latin culture that, not being able to understand Spanish gives me serious FOMO.

Coincidentally, my work also began offering Coursera courses for free, and being the free-stuff-addict that I am, I impulsively dove into the deep end and signed up for a 5-course Learning Spanish certification. ¡Muy deficil! I just wrapped up my first 3-week course and it’s been a challenge just keeping up with all the ways of gendering and conjugating.…everything!

And then there’s the pronunciation. I’ve always been pretty hopeless with trilling my R’s, but through a number of YouTube videos I’m very slowly getting better. There are so, so many online, but I ultimately found this one helpful. Speaking of, here’s a video of me speaking Spanish if you want a laugh a bit… or cringe a whole lot. It was my final assignment, and fortunately the feedback were positive outside of needing to practice speaking more. 

Other than that I also went on my first work trip to Austin just last week. It was definitely nice to finally meet my teammates, over yummy BBQ no less.  You can check out some of the photos I took this month.

Lastly, I’ve been really digging this awesome album titled “De Todas las Flores” from Natalia Lafourcade (Apple Music Link).  I actually learned about this album before my Spanish learning journey, but from this YouTube video by Anthony Fantano, the self-proclaimed Internet’s busiest music nerd. I have no idea what she’s singing, but maybe some day.

Hope you’re doing well, and staying safe! Reply and LMK how you’re doing?

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Love wins