Here’s a post that as a student I’m not very proud of.
I’ve nearly lost my Spanish. Yep that’s right. The four years I spent learning this lovely language have nearly gone down the drain. I didn’t realize how much I had lost until I arrived here in Orlando. You have a guest walk up to you, “Habla español?” “Un poco, como puedo ayudarte?” I would say about 75% of the time I’m able to help them and tell them what they need. The other 25% gets a little awkward. At that point you have one of two options. You can either hope there is a guard at your pool that can actually communicate with this guest. Or unfortunately you have to point them to the front desk. Since there has been so many Spanish speakers at Disney, some has already started to come back. I even used the subjunctive the other day, that was a big high five to all my Spanish teachers. The one phrase that always alludes me when on stand is “walk please.” For some reason I know exactly what it is when off stand but on stand I just blank and let them run. Oops.
I try my best when it comes to communicating with non native speakers. It’s a lot of hand gestures or body language to get your point across. When I go back to school after my program, I’m going to take a couple of Spanish classe to brush up. I think it would help me in moving up in the company being truly fluent.
To my Spanish teachers that read this, thank you.
-Hunter
HunterTakesDisney 