Have you ever proudly declared to someone that you are the basement?

I have.

Today, after years of living in various Latin American countries—and once living with a girlfriend who didn’t speak English well—I can claim a high level of competence in Spanish. But it took a while to get there.

I first got serious about learning Spanish after my first major trip abroad, to the Dominican Republic. The following year, I enrolled in a Spanish course at a university in Montreal while working on a master’s degree and selling handmade jewelry in a downtown plaza.