The first week I went to class in the morning, Monday – Friday, 8:30 to 1:30, and Maria was my “profesora”. Last week I switched to afternoons, 2:00 to 6:00, plus 5 hours on Saturday, and my “profesora” was Anita. I will not agree to an afternoon class again; my brain does not function as well in the afternoon. Starting tomorrow, I’m back on the morning schedule, and back with Maria.
The first couple of days were fairly easy; light vocabulary, numbers, colors, months, days of the week. Then came the verbs. I thought “to be” was difficult…when to use SER vs ESTAR. But then we started conjugating, and suddenly “to be” was a pretty simple concept.
I’ve been a conjugating fool for about a week now. I can conjugate present tense pretty well. Past tense is eating my lunch. I can’t imagine what will happen when we start on future tense. Curtis always said he just lives in the present when it comes to conjugating verbs in Spanish; now I understand why.
I still cannot remember the meaning of all the verbs I am conjugating. It’s hard to speak in complete sentences when you don’t know verbs! I should have studied them a little more before-hand. I also am not to the point where I can hear distinct words when someone speaks to me. It’s really, really frustrating to me. I know I am not this stupid!
Earlier this week in class, I had to read an article and then answer questions about the article. The first sentence talked about “los matemáticos” and “ratones”. I thought, ok, an article about a study using lab mice. It wasn’t until the third paragraph that I figured out the article had nothing to do with mice! It’s hard to answer questions when your comprehension of what you’re reading is absolutely zero.
Most days, I leave class in a stupor. I’ve got another 4 weeks of this! Hopefully by then I’ll know more words and will be able to understand what someone is saying when they speak to me.
I didn’t take any language in high school. I doubt that I would have remembered any of it even if I had. If I only knew then what I know now…