Lately, my weekly Spanish class has been a source of extreme frustration. Why was learning German in high school so easy when Spanish seems so hard? Am I retarded? Why does everyone else seem to understand what the teacher is saying? How does everyone else already know how to put the sentences together? There were days when I wanted to stay home. The only reason I went was because I thought, "How many times are you going to try to learn Spanish before you actually do it?"
There was last year when I signed up for the class at the nearby community college. Then they told me I'd go to FLETC in November. The college wouldn't let me change the class to audit so I dropped it. Only to have FLETC pushed back to January.
There was the spring semester of 2005 at UAF. I was taking my EMT 2 class at the same time. Evenings spent at the fire station sticking my friends with IV's and massive amounts of studying left no time for Espanol. I learned very little Spanish from that class and I regretted wasting my money.
Countless audio tapes, CDs and textbooks litter my bookshelves. Untouched.
I've been so frustrated I decided I need to study. Once a week class isn't enough. In high school I had German class 5 days a week. So I busted out some of those CDs and I've been listening to them as I surf the internet, get ready for work, or clean my room.
In class last night we played Simon says, or "Simone dice." While my speaking (hablando) skills aren't very good, my comprehension is improving. I actually won the game. I was left standing at the end. It was a small thing really, but I needed the confidence boost. Learning languages is hard for me, apparently. Now I understand the guys in my bagpipe class who stopped coming. They had such a problem learning to read music. But if they had stuck with it, like Mo and John, they'd be doing so much better. So I'm going to stick with it. When I look at Mo's gargantuan fingers on the bagpipe chanter I wonder how they will ever move fast enough to play well. When I hear my garbled, strangled pronunciation of Spanish I wonder how I will ever speak well. But Mo and I will keep trying anyway.
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4 comments:
All the Spanish I ever needed I learned from saturday morning television.
"Endele, endele, Arriba! Senor Speedy Gonzales is still the fastest mouse in all Mexico!"
My father used to live in Spain and I also took Spanish in highschool many, many years ago. Used to speak it very fluently but over the years I have not used it; therefore, losing most of what I knew. Thankfully, I am beginning to pick it back up. Where I am at I deal with a lot of Hispanics and even though Soy Policia (I am the police), they are willing to talk to me and help me with my Spanish. So very greatful!! Plus, it helps me build some CI's among the Hispanic population in the process! :)
They say the best time to learn a language is before you are 12 years old. I'm well beyond that. I have tried to learn languages in my adult life, but unless I have someone to speak the language with on a regular basis, I forget it too quickly.
Get, "Spanish in Ten Minutes a Day." It looks cheesy but don't be fooled - it's fantastic - even comes with flash cards, CDs and stickers to hang up everywhere. Get the language map to go with it... I'm using the French, Italian and Norwegian in ten minutes a day right now. (Norwegian is kicking my backside.)
German and Spanish = apples and oranges. The key is LATIN muwahahahahaha! If you study Latin you can easily pick up French, Italian and Spanish!
www.memoriapress.com <-- Latin "Book of Roots" VERY GOOD for studying Latin-based languages like El Spanisho. Really dry and BORING and all yer friends will think you're a geek if they catch you wit it ... but it's priceless for unlocking the code o' Spanish.
Oooo...that hideous nasty rat is back in the kitchen. Con permisso but I must go hunt un raton... or is that Uno raton? Il Raton? Le Ratonoux??? It's big, whatever it is!!
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