Rebecca Mongrain's Blog

Learning for the art of learning

I've been taking Spanish classes for almost a year now and I really enjoy them. I finally feel as if I'm getting it. I can make small conversation and watching television shows in espanol is no longer as difficult as it once was. Lately though what has struck me as interesting is how other people react to my desire to learn another language.

They ask if I'm traveling to Spain or Costa Rica, or if I need to learn it for my job or if I have someone I want to communicate with in Spanish. And they are consistently surprised when I tell them, I am taking the language for the single purpose of learning it. And I've had more than one person say in the last week that it is refreshing to see someone learning for the sake of learning.

And hearing that for me is interesting. Don't others want to learn just to learn? Isn't that why we read books, take up hobbies, explore new places to visit? At the end of the day, isn't all that to learn and expand our minds? But maybe it isn't. Maybe people get too busy (and I would certainly put myself into this group) to learn new things. Jobs take up a lot of the day, then exercise (to fit into some ideal), families, responsiblities and laundry take up the rest. Sometimes fitting learning in can be tough but sometimes sacrificing laundry time for learning can be way more rewarding than clean clothing!