I’ve always had a passion for Spanish since I began learning it when I was in middle school. I loved speaking it and always enjoyed participating in class and practicing as much as I could. However, when I got to college I began to feel self-doubt in my Spanish abilities. I was aware that the Spanish program in my school district wasn’t the most diverse, to say the least. None of my teachers were native speakers nor did they come from a heritage speaking family. None of my classmates had connections with native speakers either. I was really intimidated by the idea of being in class with native speakers because pronunciation was never the main focus when I was being taught.

The first Spanish class I took at UMass was 306 Spanish Pronunciation. I chose that class as my first because I was so eager to improve in an area where I felt the least confident. To say I was intimidated by the course was an understatement; jumping into a 300-level class as a freshman and having no idea how my skills compared to my classmates’ was a humbling experience. In the first class meeting, we had to rank how confident we felt pronouncing certain sounds in Spanish. Looking back, I was a little clueless–I was fully convinced that the letter “v” was pronounced like an English “v”–but I realized I was about to learn a lot.

I gradually became more at ease as the semester progressed. I enjoyed the content of the course so much and was fascinated by the linguistic features of the language. I never realized how varied the Spanish language was across various dialects. Spanish used to be taught to me as a very homogenous language because I was never taught about different accents and lexicons.

Most importantly, the professor stressed from the start of the class that linguists look at languages without judgment that one accent or way to say something is superior to another. This mindset has stuck with me throughout my career as a Spanish major. The goal of the course was to improve our pronunciation to sound more native-like, but we were never shamed for pronouncing things with English influence or told that our pronunciation was “wrong”.

Probably the most notorious sound of the Spanish language is the trilled “r”. When we got to this unit we learned that producing this sound is difficult for many native speakers, and some dialects don’t even pronounce it as a trill. Learning how the language works demystified pronunciation and made me feel validated.

At the end of the course, we reevaluated our skills by taking the same survey that started the course. I realized how much I had learned and grew as a Spanish speaker. Not only did I gain a better understanding of Spanish linguistics and learned how to sound more native-like, but I also gained confidence and appreciation for all accents and pronunciations.

It is really easy to experience imposter syndrome as a white person learning Spanish with little to no prior connection with Spanish speaking communities. Being taught that there technically is no right or wrong to pronunciation made me feel more comfortable making mistakes and learning from them. Speaking a second language makes you feel very vulnerable, but I’ve learned to embrace my vulnerability in order to grow. I learned much more than just how to sound like a native speaker. I learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, to appreciate and embrace differences, and to never stop learning and improving.