I fell in love with literature my first year in college. I suddenly wanted to read everything,
so naturally when a friend of mine began a book club and invited me to join, I didn’t hesitate. In
this club, we read and discussed books which were English classics. I was greatly enjoying my
time with the literature and this group of people. Reading literature and having a space to share
my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to it was an incredible experience that as a new literature
fanatic, I valued immensely. I loved and enjoyed this time until one day when someone
suggested we read One-Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez…in Spanish.
Every member in this club was bilingual, and everyone enthusiastically agreed reading this book
in Spanish would be an excellent way to practice our first language-everyone including myself.
I went to a bookstore and purchased my copy of the Spanish text and hurried straight
home to read it. It was exactly when I had attempted to read the first page for a third and fourth
time that I began to feel frustrated and angry. I could hardly comprehend what it was I was
reading. I could read it, but if I was asked to relate the story so far after that first page I would be
dumbfounded and not know what to say. I began to wonder: why can’t I read this or why can’t I
make sense of what I am reading? Surely I could read in Spanish. I had read and comprehended
Spanish books in my elementary school years, I could read signs posted in Spanish around work
and the cities I frequented, and I read and understand the cell phone texts my parents, coworkers,
and friends sent to me in Spanish. So why couldn’t I get through a page of Garcia Marquez’s
book?
I began to remember my years in elementary school when I was first taught to read and
write in Spanish. I learned quickly and was soon promoted to a bilingual education classes and
by the fourth and fifth grade I was in English only classes. I don’t remember what books I read in
Spanish during those years or if I even read any books in Spanish those years. I vividly
remember the first chapter books I read in English, but when thinking of Spanish texts I had
read, nothing came to mind-not even in the Spanish classes I had at the middle school or high
school level. I don’t think I ever read a chapter book in Spanish before Cien Años de Soledad. I
only remember reading a few Spanish sentences and small paragraphs at a time throughout my
entire education. Nevertheless, I did not wish to give up on my reading of Marquez, so I went
back to the text once again to attempt to locate what it was in his book that impeded me from
fully comprehending the story.
After much time spent on this first page of the story, I realized the vocabulary was more
advanced than anything I had ever read or heard in Spanish. My parents and coworkers who are
the people I talk to the most in Spanish, do not have high use of advanced vocabulary since most
have low levels of education. My friends who knew more Spanish and some even studied it
extensively would not go around showing off their vast vocabulary. My Spanish vocabulary was
simple and consisted only of the words I grew up listening to. Garcia Marquez’s book had many
advanced words I would know in English, but I had never heard in Spanish. I also noticed the
structure of the sentences was more complex than the simple Spanish sentences I was used to
reading in my daily life. Complex sentences are usually found in higher levels literature whether
it is narrative or theory, and I had obviously missed out on reading these texts in Spanish. I am
very capable of understanding and using complex sentence structures in the English language,
but when seeing them in Spanish, I was left confused. I felt incapable and incomplete when I
realized my Spanish vocabulary and understanding of complex sentence structures was limited in
comparison to my English.
Realizing my lack of advanced vocabulary and sentence structures in the Spanish
language made me feel incompetent and, simultaneously, sad. I was so upset to know that I could
not read a book in the language I first learned and used more often outside of school. I was then
mad that my education just about turned me monolingual instead of fostering my Spanish which
could have improved my skills in other areas of life, including my education. I was also
embarrassed because I would have to go back to the book club and either have to share my
failure when attempting to read the book or not go back for being too ashamed to share my
experience. It would be mortifying to admit to my fluent bilingual friends I could not read Cien
Años de Soledad.
I feared the embarrassment and humiliation more than anything, so I decided to read the
book in English in order to understand it, but I would pretend I read it in Spanish with hopes that
none of the club members would notice. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice, but despite getting
away with my lie, after having a discussion with my friends about the book, I was left feeling
just as bad as I would have felt if I told them I could not read the book in Spanish. I noticed by
reading a translated version of the original text how much meaning, language, imagery, and
overall emotion I missed compared to everyone else who read it in Spanish. Those are things that
cannot be translated which will produce the same effect in English. Although we read the same
story, the same plot, and about the same characters, I felt like I had read a completely different
book. Reading the English version on my own was wonderful, but the minute my discussions
with my friends began, I felt like I had read a cheap, summarized quick notes version of a
beautiful, classic, and unmatched tale.
Later, I began to think of the differences between my Spanish development and that of
my friends. These friends of mine were encouraged throughout their lives to practice their
Spanish through literacy and my lack of encouragement was replaced with the reinforcement I
received in English literacy. While they were expected to think, communicate, and study in
Spanish, I was only expected to be able to communicate on a very basic level in Spanish. I began
to discover how much I have lost out on and will lose out on since I am still unable to read
anything in Spanish above a third or fourth grade level.
I was so angered by my lack of Spanish literacy skills that I began to blame my parents
and wonder why it was they never encouraged me to further develop my Spanish? Although I
never questioned them directly for not encouraging me to learn Spanish more, I realized that it
might have had to do with the way I was raised. My parents were always too busy working to
even sit down and noticed what it was I read or wrote. As far as they and I knew, I had to do my
school work and receive good grades but it was up to me to do it on my own. They never noticed
this work was only done in English. They never knew or realized my Spanish had stopped
developing. They probably figured I was able to communicate with them orally and write basic
notes to them, so this must have been enough for them to think my Spanish literacy was fully
developed or just as developed as my English literacy was. I now realize that just as I managed
to get myself all the way through high school without the academic assistance from my parents, I
had to find ways on my own of improving my Spanish in order to be able to read and
comprehend Cien Años de Soledad one day.
Since the time I attempted to read Garcia Marquez’s book, I have tried to improve my
Spanish in several ways. I have taken several Spanish classes where I try to work on learning a
more advanced vocabulary and study complex sentence structures in hopes of being able to read
more Spanish books. I have been reading more Spanish books although not yet at the level of
Cien Años de Soledad, and yes, it is still frustrating but not as much as the first time I attempted
to read Garcia Marquez’s story. I used to be able to only read a few sentences or a small
paragraph at a time and now I can actually get through a whole page of a chapter book and be
able to understand what I read. I still don’t think I can read Cien Años de Soledad , but one day, I
will. If I continue to practice my Spanish literacy skills, not only will I be able to get through a
whole book like that of Garcia Marquez, but I hope I will also be able to read at the English level
I currently read in.