I finally get it -- Errors don't matter

I went to Honduras last week. I had a wonderful time. I spoke a lot of Spanish, relative to what I've spoken to native speakers in the past, I spoke every day.

The first time I spoke in Spanish in Honduras, I really had to force myself to speak, and when I finally did talk, things went well. I was proud of myself, and that first day, I really tried to practice in my mind what I wanted to say before I said it, so that I could say everything correctly. Of course, that didn't last long. It couldn't. And I started to get frustrated because I was making mistakes, and couldn't talk perfectly.

Luckily I have a friend that showed me the way. Her mom is a Spanish teacher, so she picked up a little Spanish along the way, but her vocabulary and grammar are not good at all. She knows things like the days of the week, numbers, basic greetings. I would say she is still a beginner. But she has this very friendly, talkative personality. In Honduras, she spoke. With her bad Spanish. And her numerous errors. And the people loved her. When she wanted to say a word or phrase she didn't know, she would ask me. If I didn't know, she would wing it somehow. And the people didn't turn their noses up at her, they smiled and connected with her. Watching her helped me learn that I don't have to be perfect to make those connections with other people.

Here is a writing I had corrected concerning this topic:

Creo que Honduras es magnífico. Me gusta mucho. Es muy tranquilo aquí.

Tito es el conductor que nos recogió del aeropuerto. Estaba muy nerviosa porque quería hablar en español con él, pero no estaba segura de que lo haría. Después de algún tiempo, decidí hablar con él. Practiqué las frases que quería decir docenas de veces en mi mente, ja ja. Y hablé. Solo dije que su inglés era muy bueno y estaba impresionada y admiro a cualquier persona que pueda hablar una lengua extranjera. Y él estaba impresionado. Pude verlo en la cara de sorpresa que cubrió su rostro. Y me dijo que mi español era muy bueno. Y hablábamos un poco y entonces me sentía más cómoda y tenía más confianza para hablar en español. Ya he tenido muchas oportunidades para hablar en español ya que casi todo el personal del hotel solo habla español. Y es una experiencia muy buena y motivadora. Cometo errores, pero entiendo que no le importa.

Learning without learning

I noticed the coolest thing the other day. About 6 months ago, I bought a book in Spanish. I didn't get very far reading it, I read maybe 40 pages. For some reason, I underlined every word I didn't know, with the expectation that I would look up the words later. That never happened. I remember thinking that this book was difficult for me, and, in fact, I had underlined an average of 10 words per page. I just picked up the book again last week to read, and amazingly, most of the words I had underlined I now know. I'm down from not knowing 10 words per page to 1 or 2. Now how did that happen? I've been continuously studying in Spanish, so I must have come across these words in other contexts. This is very encouraging for me.