How to Immerse Yourself Without Losing Friends

My last post seemed a bit rude and even gross according to some people on Twitter. I thought it was fine and with me some other people thought that as well. Oh well, maybe they didn’t't know me well enough to know I’m a rude SoaB (you can fill that in yourself). Add some Dutch bluntness to that and you’ve got yourself a person many people will hate.

Anyway, I decided to write a nicer post today. A post in which I explain how to keep people close to you instead of scaring them away because they think you’re a freak.

Spanish Only is all about being Spanish/Latino and going extreme with that idea. And it works really well; in the end you’re very likely to speak Spanish. A nasty thing that comes with that fluency is the fact that you’ve lost your old friends.

I know what I’m talking about, I’m just not that close anymore with some of my oldest friends. I’ve been so extreme with being Spanish the last three years that I’ve neglected them. Instead, I chose to hang out more with my classmates and other Spanish speakers I met over time.

Luckily you don’t have to be like me (woohoo, lucky you!) and is it possible to hang out with your old friends without losing your immersion environment.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still strongly recommending you to hang out with hispanohablantes, but I understand you don’t want to throw away old friends. So here are some ways you maybe didn’t think of:

Listening music
Why do you have to listen to English-language music? You don’t do it in your free time anymore, so why would you do it when chilling with some friends? Turn on that Spanish music!

If you explain what you’re doing (learning Spanish through immersion) a good friend will understand it and enjoy some nice Spanish music with you. I even recommend keeping that radio on all the time, even if it’s just in the background.

Watching movies
Spanish-language cinema is getting better and better, so why not enjoying some weird Almodóvar movie with your friends?

The problem is probably that they won’t understand a word, but you can always turn on the subtitles. Just be sure you ignore them (really, ignore them fully).

I’ve watched some good movies with Dutch friends of mine. All we did was turning on the subtitles for them which I then ignored (the subtitles, of course) and enjoyed a movie in Spanish.

Going out
You probably prefer hanging out only with hispanohablantes. But because you’re not totally ego-centric you don’t want to lose the friends you always had. So what do you do? You go out.

Take your friends to a bar or club many hispanohablantes go to and socialise with some of them as well. Your friends probably don’t mind as long as you still give some attention to them and introduce the people you just met.

I’m a lucky bastard when it comes to this. Some of my Dutch friends either have a Spanish parent or lived in Spain for several years. Because they know I speak Spanish really well they just prefer speaking Spanish with me when possible (and acceptable).

Get your friends learning Spanish as well
When your friends see how much fun you’re having learning Spanish, it’s possible that they want to start learning it as well.

Push them a bit to learn Spanish together with you, but just be sure to not piss them off (in other words: don’t talk about it all the time).

Personally I never cared if my friends wanted to learn Spanish or not. I was so involved in my own little Spanish world that I didn’t care, and I was pretty sure they’d never become as extreme as me.

Still, even if your friends aren’t as serious about learning Spanish as you are, there are more excuses to watch a Spanish movie together, listen to some bad-ass Spanish rap or simply chill together in a bad with some Latinos.

Photo by Glenn Harper

Tagged as: friends, immersion, Learn Spanish, Methods, socialise, understanding