As a Spanish major, I have primarily spent my time taking Spanish courses both in Amherst and abroad in Spain. In my spring semester of freshman year, I decided to try something different and enrolled in Chinese 110. Learning Mandarin was something that I had always wanted to try since it is a language that my family speaks and is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Although my family speaks primarily Cantonese, I knew a few phrases and words in Mandarin before taking the class. What I wasn’t prepared for was the writing. Unlike English, Spanish, and other Romance languages, in Mandarin, you don’t have the luxury of being able to use letters and attempt to sound out and spell unknown words. In Mandarin, words are composed of characters. A number as simple as zero is pronounced as ‘líng’ but translates on paper to ?. In addition to having characters, there are four distinct tones. The way in which you pronounce words has to be very specific otherwise you could be saying a completely different word. For example, m? is the flat first tone translating to mother, má is the rising second tone translating to a toad, m? is the third tone translating to a horse, and mà is the falling fourth tone translating to scold. 

Initially, I thought learning Mandarin and Spanish at the same time would be confusing but it was actually not the case since they are two very distinct and different languages.  If I was learning Italian in addition to Spanish, there would definitely be more overlap and confusion since they are both Romance languages and have similar vocabulary and grammatical structures. If you are thinking of taking another language in addition to Spanish that you have never learned before, I recommend choosing a language that you are seriously interested in. Pick a language that you are passionate about learning and a language that you are willing to devote a lot of time to. In terms of the time I devoted to each language, I devoted more time to learning the vocabulary and grammar of Mandarin since it was so different from Spanish and English. In Spanish, since I had been taking Spanish classes since 7th grade, I already had a solid grasp and good understanding of grammar and vocabulary. Taking Mandarin also taught me the importance of pronunciation. I didn’t fully understand the importance of pronunciation until I learned that pronunciation in Mandarin can completely change the meaning of a word and sentence. This definitely taught me to focus more on my pronunciation of words both in Mandarin and Spanish. 

Learning two languages at the same time is definitely possible, but I recommend prioritizing and focusing on one more than the other. I am glad that I was able to fit in learning another language in addition to Spanish during my undergraduate studies. If you need additional credits or are looking for a fun class to take, I highly recommend taking additional language courses. Even though I learned both Spanish and Mandarin, my Spanish went to a different level once I had the chance to go abroad and be immersed in the culture and the language. Immersion significantly helped to further my understanding and knowledge of Spanish. I hope to someday travel to China and become immersed in Chinese so that my Chinese language skills can improve. I think learning a new language is such a valuable tool that you can use if you want to travel to an area where it is spoken, if somebody needs help with translating, or as something that can be used in your future career.