I always wanted to be able to speak a second language. Most of the peoples of the world do. Learning Spanish was my last attempt.
As a child, both my parents spoke Polish, and Russian. My grandmother who lived with us only spoke Polish. Consequently, I grew up speaking both English, and Polish. It’s funny, I always knew when there was something they didn’t want me to hear, my parents switched to Russian. I was still young when my grandmother died, then only English was spoken.
During my formal school years, I was given classes in both French, and Spanish. Unfortunately, once the class was over, and you passed the test, it was soon forgotten.
It was when I changed careers, from advertising to film and television, that I decided to try again, to learn a second language. I decided that Spanish would give me the best opportunity, to practice what I would be learning. With New York’s large Spanish population, there were Spanish television stations, and plenty of Spanish periodicals.
I was working for a film laboratory, in their post-production sound department. There was a YMCA, a short distance away, that had a beginner night class in Spanish. It was perfect, the class was great, and the teacher made it a very enjoyable experience. I was actually learning a fair amount of Spanish in a short period of time.
Then unexpectedly, I was offered a new position, working for a large post-production sound studio. They specialized in looping, and mixing feature films, as well as mixing television specials, and advertising commercials.
My first assignment was to work on a daily American television show, that was being re-dubbed into Portuguese, for Brazil. My job was only to make sure the recording was technically correct. There was a director who was responsible for the content, but I followed along with the Portuguese script. Each week I would spend the first four days, recording the actors as they redubbed the English into Portuguese. On the last day of the week, I would edit in the show, music, and sound effects. Then I would do a final mix.
So, by day I was spending about forty hours a week, recording and reading scripts in Portuguese, and at night I was studying Spanish. I think you can guess what was going to happen.
I think it was two to three weeks into my new job, that my Spanish teacher asked me to stay after class. She wanted to discuss the homework assignment that I had handed in. She started by saying, that up to now all my homework assignments were perfect, except this last one. A portion of the assignment was answered, not in Spanish, but in Portuguese. She was very puzzled how this could happen. Oh No!
So, I explained about my new job, and what it entailed. She was very understanding, a little amused, since had never encountered a student with my unique problem. She also suggested that I drop the Spanish class, since my job was going to last longer than the class.
She said that I should look on the bright side, I was now getting paid for learning Portuguese.
During my time working on this project, my Portuguese was getting better, and better. After a while I was able to communicate with the actors. I also used it twice a year, when I visited P-Town, to photograph the whales.
