my spanish
in total i have had about 5 months of real spanish practice in my life. i literally do not count high school spanish and my one semester of "continuing spanish" at the nell because honestly, the only thing i could remember when i stepped off the plane in ecuador in jan 07 was how to conjegate in the present tense, donde esta el baño, and no hablo español. (im really not exagerating) after 3 months in ecuador, i felt fluent...i felt i could carry on a real conversation with real people. then a year and a half went by where the only real practice i got was skyping sometimes with friends and being drunk.
now im here in colombia and have been here for 2 months. my spanish is at least at the level it was when i left ecuador complemented by the paisa vocabulary and idiomatic expressions, but im frustrated. im frustrated because when i want to have an intelligent conversation the words just arent there. my worst fear is looking incompetent and like an idiot, yet that literally happens on a daily basis here. dont get me wrong, i do appreciate when im corrected...its such a valuable part of my learning. i have about 3 people down here who help me with that; my boss, an eafit aiesecer, and an eia alumnus. honestly i like it most when my boss corrects me because she only corrects me when im making a grave mistake and in a strict but nonintrusive way. she also doesnt correct me until after im done with the comment and/or when she sees me faltering in the middle.
people have told me that this happens at a certain point in your language development, but it wouldnt bother me as much if people didnt make fun of me when i make mistakes here. i know its all fun and games and they really dont mean anything by it, but what they dont realize is that they are one of the MANY people who make fun of me throughout the day. its like when i was in the us and would tell people i was heading to colombia...theyd make an innocent cocaine joke and be done with it, but after 10 of those a day it starts taking a toll. there are some days where i literally find myself avoiding those people who either constantly correct me or make fun of me because i just cant handle any more bruises to my ego. sometimes i just want to speak and be heard, whether im using por/para right or not. at the end of a normal day i think im twice as exhausted as i ever was in the states due to this. but i know it will all be worth it in the end...
ok venting session over.
posted by syd @ 5:52 AM
3 Comments:
That has caused MANY frustrated moments and tears for me since my time here. My roommate's girlfriend asked my boyfriend (French) if he minded dating someone that spoke 'Tarzan' french (funny joke) and everyday someone comments on my 'cute' American accent.
It gets easier with time and eventually you realize that the most important thing is that you can express yourself (and i promise that will come) and all the comments/corrections will stop stinging. Promise. Or, get yourself a relationship with a native speaker and I assure you the language skills will come super quickly : )
Ali makes very good points. It's also good to put as much energy in on the front end to avoid bad habits. This is one of the skills of learning languages that develops over time and some poepple are more talented than others at learning the languages. I spent 10 months in Latin America and after a certain amount of time whether you say por or para is important and the proper use of subjunctive makes a difference in subtle communication. I wish I put more energy in stopping bad habits before they started because now it is much more difficult. But it's all about not taking offense and moving forward.
i'm an aiesecer from georgia tech and just happened to run across this post. i can't tell you how much i understand everything you're saying. when i did my traineeship in brazil, i had the exact same problem especially since i'd never studied the language before. eventually though, i found that as long as you were getting your point across, and especially after they saw how hard you were trying, people began to respect you for making it so important to learn the language and learn it well. it opened lots of new doors for me (relationship-wise) with people i wouldn't have been able to communicate with before. hang in there, you're probably learning more than you realize every day :) and good luck with everything.
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