Again, I have been slacking in my blogging duties of blogginess. Life has been very spastic and random the last month, and I'm afraid that my brain has not has much room for thinks like... well... thinking. Ergo, actually writing something that would make any sense whatsoever is a rather difficult task.
I leave for Guatemala in 1 week and 6 days. Not that I'm counting or anything. I am officially EXTREMELY excited and also VERY nervous. Being my first international trip and also traveling alone has my nerves in a bit of a tizzy. I tend to do well with traveling independently, however, so I'm sure that I will be just fine. I bought a pocket Spanish dictionary today, along with a phrase book. Whoever thought up phrase books should get a gold star, and maybe even a cookie. Its just fabulous! I shall carry it everywhere with me, so that I shall not forget how to say things like "where is the bathroom" or "does that come with caviar"? Just as long as I don't mix them up and ask if there's caviar in the bathroom, I should be okay.
I purchased some educational CDs for the purpose of refreshing mi Espanol and learning some new phrases back in the fall. My self esteem still has not recovered. I started on the final lesson in that series yesterday and still feel that I am equally as stupid as I was back in October. This is highly disappointing, if for no other reason than I spent money on those darn CDs. Had I had the motivation to keep up with that and listen religiously, it may have actually worked. After the bombardment of a bazillion and a half vocabulary words involving food couldn't even keep me going, I knew that the situation was pretty hopeless. If talking about food can't get me excited.... I'm not sure anything can.
I really need to just take a class. I work much better that way. Plus, its incredibly difficult to really learn how to speak another language when... oh.... you know... you can't actually PRACTICE with anyone. My cat isn't exactly the most beneficial study partner. I think meowese is a universal language. Lucky cat.
But, alas and alack, I cannot join a class and magically learn to speak fluent Spanish in a little over 2 weeks. Hence, I will need to keep my nose in my flashcards and my ears glued to the nice lady on the CDs and pray fervently that my head will not explode in Guatty due to foreign language overloadiness.
May Jesus bless my poor brain. It needs it.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Lessons in How to Destroy Your Self Esteem
In case you ever find yourself in a place where perhaps your self esteem is a bit too stable, or you feel that your sense of self worth is finally secure, or that you may actually be semi-intelligent, I have discovered the cure-all for all forms of self assured-ness: simply attempt to learn a language. Seriously, you'll be remedied without delayed. As in, pronto, unhesitatingly, and tout de suite. That's pretty darn fast.
In preparation for my upcoming trip to Guatemala, I am making a very valiant effort to reacquaint myself with the Spanish language. This will be my first experience in a foreign land with foreign people who speak a foreign language. That's alot of foreign-ness. I have long wanted to speak another language and discovered that this trip was the motivation that I've needed to actually do something about it.
So, to Amazon.com I went to order Level 1, Latin America Spanish CDs from Instant Immersion. Which is guaranteed to prepare you for everday conversations on Spanish-speaking countries in just 8 easy lessons. Mind you, I have hardly uttered a syllable of Spanish in 6 years....
After a week of anxiously awaiting the arrival of said CDs, they finally show up on my doorstop. Oh, joy!! I eagerly popped in lesson one... And, what do you know, those 2 semester of Spanish in college were actually worth something. I flew through it. I even almost remembered how to pronounce all the letters of the alphabet. I recalled words like "house" and "but" and "hello." Oh, joy!! I was well on my way to being a full-fledged speaker of foreign-ness!
Then came lesson 2. And all the fun of lesson 2 that came in the form of verb conjugations. I mean, really, that's just unnecessary. Ugh. Right away, I opened the window of my apartment and tossed out my self esteem. It was gone. No longer did I feel smart from my 32 weeks of Spanish in college. No longer was I bouncing around the kitchen, cooking dinner, and repeating after the very nice sounding lady on the CD to my cat, who just looked at me as if I am insane. Which is nothing new. She looks at me that way often.
I have to say though, the nice sounding lady on the CDs is very encouraging. After she must so clearly hear my flawless (ahem) repetition of her lovely Spanish through the speakers of my laptop, she says that I have done "muy bien" or "excellente." Its quite kind of her to be so supportive. Its like having my own personal language cheerleader, minus the pom-poms and short skirts.
Midway through lesson 3 (which had loads of vocabulary and more verb conjugating than I'd like to even discuss. I had to not only learn -ar verbs, but -er and -ir verbs too. That's just asking way too much), I decided that it was time to break out the big guns. I bought flashcards. Oh yeah. Watch out Guatemala, here I come! The flashcards have brought me knowledge of the Spanish equivalent to "oyster and "cow," which, clearly, I need to know before traveling anywhere outside the country. I now feel prepared to communicate effectively. I'll just answer every question with "la ostra." If nothing else, I may get some food out of it.
So, with the all-powerful flashcards in hand, I am ready to conquer lesson 4. In which I will learn how to count to 100, discover even more verbs that will need conjugating and, hopefully, some more nouns involving food. I like food. Food is my friend.
In preparation for my upcoming trip to Guatemala, I am making a very valiant effort to reacquaint myself with the Spanish language. This will be my first experience in a foreign land with foreign people who speak a foreign language. That's alot of foreign-ness. I have long wanted to speak another language and discovered that this trip was the motivation that I've needed to actually do something about it.
So, to Amazon.com I went to order Level 1, Latin America Spanish CDs from Instant Immersion. Which is guaranteed to prepare you for everday conversations on Spanish-speaking countries in just 8 easy lessons. Mind you, I have hardly uttered a syllable of Spanish in 6 years....
After a week of anxiously awaiting the arrival of said CDs, they finally show up on my doorstop. Oh, joy!! I eagerly popped in lesson one... And, what do you know, those 2 semester of Spanish in college were actually worth something. I flew through it. I even almost remembered how to pronounce all the letters of the alphabet. I recalled words like "house" and "but" and "hello." Oh, joy!! I was well on my way to being a full-fledged speaker of foreign-ness!
Then came lesson 2. And all the fun of lesson 2 that came in the form of verb conjugations. I mean, really, that's just unnecessary. Ugh. Right away, I opened the window of my apartment and tossed out my self esteem. It was gone. No longer did I feel smart from my 32 weeks of Spanish in college. No longer was I bouncing around the kitchen, cooking dinner, and repeating after the very nice sounding lady on the CD to my cat, who just looked at me as if I am insane. Which is nothing new. She looks at me that way often.
I have to say though, the nice sounding lady on the CDs is very encouraging. After she must so clearly hear my flawless (ahem) repetition of her lovely Spanish through the speakers of my laptop, she says that I have done "muy bien" or "excellente." Its quite kind of her to be so supportive. Its like having my own personal language cheerleader, minus the pom-poms and short skirts.
Midway through lesson 3 (which had loads of vocabulary and more verb conjugating than I'd like to even discuss. I had to not only learn -ar verbs, but -er and -ir verbs too. That's just asking way too much), I decided that it was time to break out the big guns. I bought flashcards. Oh yeah. Watch out Guatemala, here I come! The flashcards have brought me knowledge of the Spanish equivalent to "oyster and "cow," which, clearly, I need to know before traveling anywhere outside the country. I now feel prepared to communicate effectively. I'll just answer every question with "la ostra." If nothing else, I may get some food out of it.
So, with the all-powerful flashcards in hand, I am ready to conquer lesson 4. In which I will learn how to count to 100, discover even more verbs that will need conjugating and, hopefully, some more nouns involving food. I like food. Food is my friend.
