School’s out for summer

Today was our last of 15 Spanish lessons with our enthusiastic teacher Leticia.   Leticia has been prepared, punctual, and patience.  Eager to learn about Canada and our customs and quick to share her passion for Buenos Aires and Argentina.

We were not presented with report cards, but certainly can grade parts of our performance and reflect on lessons learned. 

1.     Its never too late to learn a language

Can’t teach an old dog new tricks?  Nonsense!  We are both amazed at the amount of vocabulary and grammar we have digested in three short weeks.  Hundreds of verbs conjugated, numerous adjectives, and countless nouns – I swear I can order 50 types of steak AND actually know what I’m getting.  While arranging words in a properly constructed sentence presents a test for a grammatically challenged student like myself, there is progress!

2.     Be prepared to laugh – at yourself – a lot

Remember the last time you had a chuckle watching a non-English speaker be interviewed on the 6pm news?  Missing sentence construction and past, present, and future tenses all rolled into one?  That’s me for 3 hours a day, much to the amusement of Deanna and Leticia.  The number of times I’ve said ‘I am… (sandwich, directions on the subway, coca-cola) Instead of I’d like… actually boggles the mind.  

3.     Those who invented languages were cruel for no good reason sometimes.

To, too, two.  I am going to the store to buy two unless it costs too much.  To a non-English speaker, absolute torture.  Someone couldn’t have come up with a better idea?  Spanish has its own issues.  Every noun has a gender.  This changes the adjective and pronoun every time.  If you don’t know the ‘sex’ of your noun you’re in trouble.  And why does every noun need a gender?  Maybe the advanced course.  Needless to say there is a few nouns to learn.

4.     “Lo siento podres hablar mas lento por favor” (I’m sorry.  Could you please speak slower.)

How many times have I said this?  A thousand?  - Yet I still had to just ask Dee how to say it – Asking more questions helps us learn the language but understanding the responses present an even greater challenge.

5.     If it doubt – ‘Hablas Ingles?’

We’ve been surprised how little English is spoken here, even in the service industry that accommodates tourists.  We’ve also found most portenos to be very patient.  At the very least, the wine is Malbec and you can point at the menu and hope.  We’ve only seen cow’s brains on the menu once…