I am officially humbled! Learning a new language, even one that I studied in high school, is proving to be tremendously challenging. For those of you who fantasize of traveling to exotic lands for a couple months and returning home with a second language . . . good luck! The amount of time and energy needed to just obtain conversational apprehension is much more than I had planned for. I think learning a language (like learning to play an instrument or painting a picture) comes easier for certain people. I think that I am not one of those people, because I find myself in a state of frustration or utter confusion way too often.
I signed up for a 2 week Spanish program in which I stay with a local family to further have the chance to practice my Spanish during my studies. I had illusions that after 2 weeks of concentrating on learning Spanish with my background of studies and vocabulary, I would walk away with conversational Spanish. In other words, be able to understand most of what people are saying to me and convey a message and a story with greater meaning than the simple basics. I think this was a little ambitious of me, but if nothing else, it has sparked my interest in staying with my studies after I return home.
The school is for 4 hours a day in which we study tenses/conjugations/grammar and other than that try and keep a conversation going in Spanish. After the first day I realized that at the least a couple months are needed to really give myself a fair chance at obtaining a good amount of Spanish. Although my Spanish has drastically improved, it is a small step towards being able to be confident in saying that Spanish is my second language.
Back to the analogy of playing a musical instrument to learning a new language. Just like learning a new instrument, the beginning is by far the most frustrating and disheartening part. Struggling to put sounds together on a instrument is similar to being able to sound out words in the correct pronunciation. Next comes playing chords or sounding out more words and sentences. Then notes and chords together and eventually part of a song. This is the same as sentences and parts of messages, which do not sound all that great in the beginning. Eventually you are able to nail part of a song or a whole song which would be the same as go to introduction lines like: What is your name? or Where are you from? Then comes the confidence to play songs, tones and chords together in a way that sounds good for the listener or being able to convey a message in a way that the person you are talking to understands. Reading music is similar to understanding what is said or writer. I am around this point in my Spanish and am looking forward to understanding more and being able to have deeper conversations with people and spending less time searching through my dictionary for the correct word or phrase.
After spending hours with my host mom I have a new understanding of the word awkward. Carmen, a working-class Chilean woman in her 40's is my host-mom. Her house is in an apartment building in a very nice and secure part of Santiago. Her apartment is small, but very, very clean. I am happy to have my own bedroom and private bathroom with shower for the next 2 weeks. Part of the program includes breakfast and dinner which is where I spend the majority of time talking with Carmen.
Carmen tells me that she doesn't eat dinner, so instead she sits with me while I eat and talks with me in Spanish. I struggle with the words to explain what I did with my day and what I plan to do in the future. Carmen is very nice and patient, like most Chileans and helps me through trying to express myself in Spanish.
The school is a starting point to my commitment to learn Spanish. As I travel throughout South America I will continue to practice and force myself out of my comfort zone of English. Hopefully when I return home I will have a solid base of Spanish and will be inspired to practice and travel to other Spanish speaking countries.
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