One of my (Guatemalan) coworkers who always jokes with me in (Spanish) was telling me for several months that he really wanted to learn (English), and occasionally he would ask me to tell him how you say a(n English) phrase.
Like, he wanted to say stuff like, "I am looking for work" and "I cannot work tomorrow," and he always wanted help with the pronunciation of "and" and words with "L," like "a lot."
And, from conversations with him and another coworker, it was clear that his first language is indigenous and his second is (Spanish), and that he had absolutely zero exposure to (English), since they really didn't teach it in the schools back when they were in school, although that's starting to change now in (Guatemala).
Also, he doesn't just know one indigenous language, he knows a bit of a second related one that's in the same region where he comes from.
Anyways, I kept telling him that he should practice with Duolingo and that it's free, and one time when I stayed in the restaurant on lunch-break when we were closed for the afternoon, I even had him download it and I showed him how it worked, and I walked him through the first lesson.
And, afterwards, I'd ask him how it was going, and he always avoided the conversation, and then he said he took it off his phone because he didn't have enough space, and then he'd ask me for words, and I'd tell him that I could help him with words, but the app on his phone was always available and it was a lot quicker and a much more efficient way to learn new words, and you could learn a lot of words just by using Duolingo a little bit each day.
Then he had the app on his phone again, and finally he said that he didn't like the app, since it was teaching him words like "coffee" and "tea'" and those weren't the words that he wanted to learn.
So, I had him open up the app for me, and I showed him how the lessons were themed, and how it started out with ordering in a cafe, but then it moved into greetings and introductions and ordering in a restaurant and talking about your family, and yes, the first lessons were stupid, but just do them and you'll quickly get to the better material for what he wanted to know.
Then, like less than a week later, we work together again, and he's so excited, and he starts practicing all of his new (English) with me, like "Hello" and "How are you?" and "What's your name?", and he even starts using it situationally, like, he brings a rack of clean glasses out and he needs to pass by someone, and he's suddenly saying, "Excuse me, please."
And, he was just ecstatic, and you could tell that his pronunciation had improved, too.
He also started asking a few of my (Thai) coworkers their names, since they don't speak (Spanish) and he had maybe heard their names once or twice, but had always forgotten what they were.
And, I told him in (Spanish), that he now had repetition of (English) from two sources, from the app, and from talking with us at work, and he began to ask me words that expanded off of the basic words and phrases that he had already learned, since he wanted to move into more complicated interactions, you could tell.
It really makes you realize how trapped he must have felt, around these people all day, only a portion of whom he could really communicate with.
My one (chubby) (Thai) coworker also was asking him how many lessons (units?) he did, and he was counting on his fingers, and he said something like fourteen.
Fourteen units, in less than a week, from someone who works a lot. That's a lot.
"He's really smart," my one (tall) (Chinese from China) coworker commented, too.
Which, I could always tell from talking with him, and his sense of humor.
It really makes you realize how life put him where he grew up with minimal access to education and a need to immigrate for money, and it could have been much different for him, if instead of washing dishes and doing prep cook things all day, he was channeled into education and an accordant profession from his teens (though, to be fair, he's twenty-four, so there's still a lot of time).
How many people out there in the world are like that, you wonder?
It just makes you very angry that we're losing public education in this country, at least at the collegiate level in some areas. He is *exactly* the type of person who deserves immediate access to all forms of education, all the way through full college.
It's like horizons are contracting.
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