The last week or so has been super busy!!! Or has felt busy. To catch everyone up, I turned 20, went to a Uruguay/Paraguay soccer match (world cup qualifier match!!!), went to El Prado (which is a fair), and the usual stuff (beach (though not for much longer), park, learning how to properly kick a soccer ball, etc.)
So I thought I'd give an update on something and figured since we're at the half way point I'll talk about Spanish. Yes, that language I've been trying to learn. First off, learning a language is hard. There are days where I am honestly exhausted and have a headache just from being more exposed to Spanish than English in a day. I guess it's good but not too much fun. Spanish isn't going as well as I could have hoped but at the same time I've learned so much! But the more I learn the more I realize I don't know anything. When I first got here I had to first get use to the differences between "southern cone Spanish" and what I had learned. First off, pronunciations. Words like: yo, ya, pollo, calle, ayudar, llamar, well anything that has a "y" or a "ll" sound very different. Instead of a "y" sound it is...not anything like a "y" But I've learned it crazily enough. Now that sounds natural and when I hear it the other way I get thrown off. Every once in a while I'll revert to the "y" sound but for the most part I've converted. Not sure if that's a good thing or not but I think it sounds cooler now! After that I had to figure out "vos". It's a different tense. It's like a more informal "tú". At first people would ask "¿De dónde sos?" and I had no clue what they meant. So I had to learn how to understand different conjugations. I normally use "tú" for verbs but I'll say "y vos" every once in a while. Makes me feel cool, I'll be honest. Like I actually know what I'm talking about. I've learned a lot in general too. So thats been really good. And I'm understanding more all the time. I still have to ask "¿Comó?" a lot because I rarely understand people the first time they say anything. Mostly because I don't realize that anyone is talking to me.
While I was in Argentina I bought a book. It's about violence in soccer, really interesting stuff. But it's in Spanish. I've been reading that. It's not really an easy book to read. I mean I could have read a kid's novel but this was cheap and sounded like fun. It's been really good for me though. At the beginning I struggled to read it. It would take me forever to read a page and I would finish and have no clue what it all meant. Now I'm reading faster and understanding a lot more. Comprehension is one of my big problems. Both in reading and listening. I can listen to a sermon at church and understand the words that they are saying, and sometime even put it together in phrases and sentences, but then after church I can't tell you what the service was exactly about. I can say it was something about this or that but I don't know. Even reading I can understand it but I can't retain it. I'll have to work on that. I also bought Narnia in Spanish but haven't started reading it. I'm going to finish my soccer book.
A while back I had to watch a movie for Spanish class. She said we could use English subtitles and we might not have but the a couple of the guys wanted to watch it and didn't know Spanish very well so we used them until the disk messed up. Luckily there was another disk but that one had just Spanish subtitles. I was really proud though how well I did. When I read a book I can take longer on a sentence, phrase, or concept, which isn't a bad thing, but watching this made me think faster.
Spanish music too! Especially "La Oreja de Van Gogh" and "El Sueño de Morfeo." :)
So yeah there is a little bit about how my Spanish is going. In some ways I wish it could have been a complete immersion program (that'll make you learn) but it's not... I don't regret that though. I've made great friends and have developed great relationships with the people here I'm living with. I wouldn't trade the friends I made. And I have learned a lot of Spanish. They have also pushed me to do better. We're all in this and use each other for support and help. Now that I've talked about Spanish...I'm going to Brazil this Friday! Where Spanish isn't going to help me... Não falo português.
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