Me Gusta La Onda Aquí! Hola todos. Me llamo Sandi (this wasn’t supposed to be my name, me explico) y estado aprendiendo español durante 8 meses, más o menos. Una historia muy extraña…Descubrí noviembre pasado que yo soy Afrocubana. Yo era como ¡QUE!!! Mi tía me dijo que mi padre tuve una pelea con su padre y nos ocultó. Yo no sé qué el nombre de mi tía no es “Mary” pero ella es “Maricela”. Here’s what happened: my 2x great grandmother was enslaved and sent to Cuba. She escaped and hid in the Palenques. She met and married a native man with the last name “Aparicio”. She was recaptured and sent with her son (my great grandfather) to the US. They were then separated and sold. She made my great grandfather promise to remember his name and to pass it on to all his descendants. When my grandfather was born we were allowed to have birth certificates. But the government couldn’t spell nor pronounce his last name so they changed it to smith. UGHHH. Fast forward, my father got mad at my grandfather for not allowing him to move back home with his wife and son (my mom and brother). The fight got so bad that even after my grandfather GIFTED my father a house of his own, he still hated him and would try to fight him. He decided the best way to get back at my grandfather was to not pass on our first names to honor our Cuban ancestors. So I decided to learn Spanish to honor them. I’m told that I’m conversational but my goal is to be fluent by the end of this summer/end of fall🤞🏾Entonces, my name was supposed to be “Maricela” I’m EXCITED to be here. Thanks for having me 🤎

Watching novelas works best for me. Now I watch them with English subtitles until I can understand 50%. Then I switch to Spanish subtitles till I can u understand 80-90%. Then it’s no subtitles.

Hola todos. Ya aprendí que I try to translate in my head before responding and I end up sounding like a robot on training wheels. Entonces, Hablo conmigo mismo en voz alta cada día. Yo también pienso en español. Because im not afraid when im alone, im never embarrassed and i find that my response time is much shorter. Escribo en español y me grabo hablando lo que escribí. I then go back every few days and review what i wrote. It helps me a ton!