People make a big deal of dreaming in languages other than their own.  The general assumption is that it marks the point when your mind can switch between languages with relative ease.  I hope that’s the case because it happened to me for the first time two weeks ago.

I remember because, in the dream, I interrupted a conversation in English to say, “Wait, we should speak in Spanish.”  And then we did.

Though I haven’t used those exact words in real life, they express a sentiment that I’ve had throughout my time here: I shouldn’t waste opportunities to improve my Spanish.  Hanging out with groups of just Americans is the biggest threat to the achievement of that goal.  When with a group of Americans from my program, I sometimes have to encourage Spanish conversation.  Responding with Spanish to statements in English works when I’m in groups of two or three.  It’s a bit harder with more people.

That means that the best solution is to mix with Spaniards.  I’ve been fortunate enough to find Spanish friends here, which has been the biggest boon to my language skills.

Despite the effort I’ve put into speaking Spanish, it’s sometimes hard to realize that I’m improving.  That makes it all the more satisfying to hit benchmarks like speaking it in my dreams.