My Spanish was horrific growing up. It didn’t help that I lived in Texas and the Spanish spoken in the state was terrible. I had to speak Spanish to my parents but that was it. My world was completely an English spoken one. I didn’t realize how bad I spoke Spanish (1 of 7)

until I visited Honduras for the first time. Everyone was making fun of how I sounded more like a “gringo” than Honduran. I didn’t know how to speak with “vos” and its conjugations. Understanding someone say a simple joke took me forever to grasp. (2 of 7)

I was so frustrated that I couldn’t have a normal conversation with anyone without having to ask what a word meant a thousand times. I felt ignorant. I even told my older cousin who thankfully had studied English in Texas that I would never be able to speak Spanish (3 of 7)

correctly. She listened to me and encouraged me to start reading in Spanish. She suggested I begin with something easy like the sports section of ‘El Heraldo’ and she offered to help me with pronunciation & definitions without making me feel stupid. (4 of 7)

A combination of reading the newspaper in Spanish plus surrounding myself with people who spoke Spanish well started to give me more confidence, increased my vocabulary, and gave me a greater understanding of the language. My cousin even gave me my first book (5 of 7)

in Spanish to read: ‘Los Pájaros de Belen’ a true crime story by Honduran author Mario Berrios which kept me in suspense. Anyway, the point of this thread is to let everyone know how reading is important. Someone who can read well and at their age level (6 of 7)

will be way ahead in this game of life. So read and if possible help someone to read by giving them a book. If you want to provide a book to a young child in Honduras consider contacting @chispaprojectHN to see how it can be done. (7 of 7) #worldbookday2020 #diadellibro2020