Spanish Student Spotlight: Donna and Jim Horn
“We are excited to continue working with John and Christina and feel that they are on this journey with us!”
— Donna and Jim, Speak! Spanish Students
After long careers in sales and finance, Jim and Donna retired during the past few years to focus on travel, golf, UVA sports, and the simple pleasures of more free time. But when their son Thomas married into a Spanish-speaking family and they learned a first grandchild was on the way, the couple discovered a new shared adventure: learning Spanish together. Now taking lessons with the patient and encouraging instructor John at Speak!, they’re laughing through the challenges, practicing between classes, and looking forward to the day they can chat with their bilingual grandson and connect more deeply with their extended family.
Tell us a little about yourselves. What did you do before retirement, and what do you enjoy doing now?
We both retired during the past few years after many years in the Sales (Jim) and Finance (Donna) professions. Our children were both out of college and living elsewhere and we felt it was a good time to end our careers and begin focusing more on ourselves in retirement. Since retiring, we have been doing a lot of travel (France, Portugal, Italy…to name a few) and have been playing a lot of golf. We are avid UVA sports fans and attend many games throughout the year. We picked up golf right after we got married but didn’t do much of it when our children were growing up so we were very excited when we had the opportunity to start playing again. Donna loves tennis and we’ve also dabbled in pickleball. We both enjoy reading very much and also have picked up many volunteer opportunities as we have found ourselves with more free time to do that!
What inspired you to start learning Spanish together at this stage of your lives?
Our oldest (Thomas) got married in 2025 to a woman that was raised in El Paso, Texas and her parents/immediate family were born in, and some are still in, Mexico. She speaks fluent Spanish and Thomas has been trying to learn Spanish as well. We recently found out that they are expecting their first child (our first grandchild!) early next year. We thought it was a great opportunity for us to learn Spanish so that we can effectively communicate with our soon to be bilingual grandson.
I know that your family was a big motivation. What does it mean to you to be able to communicate with your bilingual grandchild as they grow up? Have you already had opportunities to use your Spanish with your family (I know you started recently;)? If so, what was that experience like?
It means everything to us that we will be able to learn from and with our grandson (and future grandchildren). We feel like it will be fun to do that together. We have dabbled a bit in using the Spanish that we have already started to learn (3 lessons in!) and are excited to continue to do so. Our daughter-in-law’s sister is getting married in the fall and we will be at the wedding with mostly Spanish-speaking friends and relatives so we are excited to be able to use it then as well!
Thus far, our attempts have been met with mixed results. Sometimes we get praise for our accomplishments and others we get laughter from our mistakes/questions. An example is when we were struggling with the Spanish word for ‘sneakers’ which we were taught is zapatillas deportivas. We texted our daughter-in-law frantically with, ‘How do you say sneakers in Spanish?, to which she replied….tenis. So we got a laugh out of that and realized that there are many intricacies to the Spanish language.
What has it been like taking lessons together as a couple? Has learning together brought any unexpected benefits?
It has been amazing taking lessons together as a couple. Initially we were going to sign up as part of a larger class with friends but then we wanted to start sooner as we found out about our grandson! We LOVE going to class and embarking on this journey together. We spend the time between classes doing our ‘homework’ and practicing. We laugh a lot at ourselves and each other. It has been a fun activity to do together.
What has surprised you most about learning a language as retirees?
We’ve learned that it is a bit difficult to get back into the ‘school’ mode. Donna had Spanish in high school and a bit in college so it’s interesting for her to have some things come back to her that were stored somewhere in her memory. Jim focused on German in high school and college so he’s had to work extra hard to catch up! We’ve discovered that it is much more fun to do something like this when you have the desire to do so and not when it’s forced on you, which gives us a whole new perspective on how we handled it when raising our children!
What do you enjoy most about your lessons with John at Speak!?
John has been amazing as our instructor. He is very patient with us and so encouraging, even when we are scratching our head saying ‘why the heck do we have to say it like this?’. He goes at the speed that works for us, we don’t have a set lesson plan, we just go as far as we can in our Spanish books during our 1 hour lesson. If something takes longer, we work through it together so it doesn’t feel like we’re drinking from a fire hose as we are trying to learn.
What are you most looking forward to being able to do in Spanish?
Of course, we are most looking forward to being able to speak Spanish to our grandson, we cannot wait for that. But we’re also excited to be able to better communicate with our daughter-in-law’s extended family. Since we have been doing a lot of travel (and Spain is on the list) we are excited to execute what we have learned in a Spanish speaking country. That will be our final exam for sure!
Donna, Jim, and their instructor John in one of our comfortable classrooms at Vault.
Is there anything else you'd like to share about your language-learning journey?
We reached out to SPEAK not knowing much about it. Christina was so responsive and literally connected us with John in less than a week’s time! It didn’t give us any chance to change our mind! The building is located in a great area (we sometimes walk to the library afterward!) and has classrooms that are conducive to learning. We are excited to continue working with John and Christina and feel that they are on this journey with us!
