A Different Kind of Love

by Oana Emilia Butnareanu

WHEN I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD, I fell in love. It was not a transient love-one that stayed by my side during the good times and vanished during the bad, but rather a love so deep that few would understand. It was not the love for a person, but the love for a language. It was the love for Spanish.

Having been born and raised behind the Iron Curtain, in a country where Western influence was limited, and the official, and only, language was Romanian, I was on my own. Everyone around me, especially my family, had trouble understanding what could possibly draw me to such a foreign and, in their opinion, unattractive language. But as they say, love is blind, and the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t even sure what it was exactly that made Spanish so fascinating to me. The only thing I knew was that I absolutely adored hearing its perfectly articulated phrases, and trying to make sense of its sweet and tender words: serenades to my innocent ear.

Spanish entered through my door on June 16th, 1994, when a man from the local cable company came to connect our living room to the rest of the world. That day, I was introduced to “Acasa,” a Romanian cable network dedicated to broadcasting Spanish language telenovelas (soap operas) to Romanian audiences. As I learned to read, I started associating the Romanian subtitles with the Spanish dialogue, and little by little, I began understanding the language. For a little girl who had yet to discover new aspects of her own language, this was quite an accomplishment, but no one around me felt the same way. My father, enraged at my apparent “obsession” with the language, scolded me incessantly, declaring that: “We are immigrating to the United States, not to Mexico! You should spend your time learning English instead of watching that nonsense!”

Sadly, my family’s objection was only the first of many hardships I was bound to encounter. When I was nine, my immigration to the US forced me to say goodbye to what had become a huge and indispensable part of me. I needed to hear Spanish, to listen to it daily, and although Los Angeles could be considered a Spanish speaker’s paradise, my largely Romanian neighborhood allowed for little interaction with the language. For six years, destiny kept us apart and the feelings that Spanish had evoked in me soon faded away.

But high school brought about a new era in my life, an era in which my love for Spanish was revived and greatly amplified. For an hour a day, life was put on hold and I was able to speak and read Spanish more actively than ever. After two years of Advanced Placement Spanish, I not only understood the language to perfection, but spoke it flawlessly as well.

There are no words that can describe how proud and greatly accomplished I feel today at my ability to speak Spanish. During a recent trip to Mexico, I was mistaken more than once for one of the natives. One man, after seeing my Romanian last name, asked me if it was my husband’s, for undoubtedly, he believed, I was Mexican. Given to a Romanian girl, whose family members were oblivious to the language, and who had learned it on her own despite their objections, this was the greatest compliment of all. In the United States, Spanish is the second most spoken language and a great asset for anyone who speaks it. It is not “nonsense,” as my father had dubbed it, and being able to prove this to him has made me even prouder. Spanish has influenced much of who I am today. The fight that I led against family objections, and my immigration to a new land has allowed me to develop an ambitious and aggressive spirit in the face of adversity, it has made me stronger, and taught me that I must always fight with unstoppable perseverance for all that is important to me.

I am determined to use my love and passion for Spanish to make an impact on the world. Currently, Spanish is the primary language of 21 nations around the globe, and one of the six official languages of the UN. I want to be the link that connects these nations to the United States, and to the 40 million Americans whose native language is Spanish. I want to use my ability to speak Spanish to learn more about the people of these nations, both on a professional and personal level. No matter where the path of life takes me, I wish for Spanish to always be a part of me.

Through the years, Spanish has evolved into one of my most remarkable accomplishments. Today, I am prouder than ever of loving Spanish-of having something that distinguishes me from the rest, something that makes me unique. It is not often the case for a Romanian American girl living in Los Angeles to exhibit such passion and devotion towards a language that is foreign to both her native and adoptive countries. Nevertheless, Spanish is a big part of whom I am today, and an even bigger part of who I will be in the future.

文书分析

Oana的文书开篇就令人耳目一新。虽然爱情是个老掉牙的话题，但是她的开场白还是令人惊叹：“我四岁的时候就陷入热恋之中。”这么小就谈恋爱无疑成功地激发读者的好奇心，而她也压着不说直到本段最后一句才揭晓谜底。

这篇文书好就好在它的原创性。Oana在文中描述了自己对西班牙语的热爱。学习西班牙语本身不足为奇，但是她的罗马尼亚背景和与西班牙语能力着实令人印象深刻。Oana把谈情说爱的话束信手拈来，例如，她提到“爱是盲目的”，还有把西班牙语拟人化“1994年6月16日那天走进我的家门”。而“命运把我们分开六年”则继续西班牙语拟人化的感觉，让这门语言听上去还真像她的情人。这些例句都通过艺术性地使用比喻手法来丰富和增强文书的内容。

Oana有多么爱恋西班牙语，她的家庭就有多么反对门不当户不对的这门外语。她通过使用父亲的评论来戏剧性地呈现那些细节片段。“我们就要移民去美国，而不是去墨西哥！你应该多花点时间学习英语，而不是看这没用的玩意。”幸亏有了父亲的批评，Oana后来取得的成就才变得更加宝贵——有多少罗马尼亚少女可以不顾家庭反对而通过看电视来爱上西班牙语呢？

Oana如实叙述了她遭遇的困境，首先是家里反对她学习西班牙语，后来是在洛杉矶的罗马尼亚社区缺乏用西班牙语交流的环境。但是，她依然展示出对西班牙语的忠贞不渝，尤其是在升入高中以后，她经过两年的学习熟练地掌握了这门语言。

Oana巧妙地利用墨西哥之旅中的一些小插曲来表现自己的西班牙语水平。我们了解到“她不止一次被当作本地人”。她还通过这些小插曲来反证给父亲看西班牙语“不是‘没用的玩意’。”

在倒数第二段，Oana把学习西班牙语的长期过程，升华为“逆境面前的雄心和上进精神”，以及“用西班牙语的爱与情去影响世界”的未来目标。其实，Oana本来就可以就此打住，而不必在最后段落重复前面说过的话。总结全文会让逻辑更加清晰，却也稍逊新意。