I think that I am a better English and French teacher than I am a Spanish student.
Why?
I have completed two days of Spanish. I have 3.5 (INTENSIVE) hours a day with a personal tutor, so that make 7 hours of one-to-one Spanish instruction that I have under my belt.
My brain is fried.
I briefly wondered yesterday, as I nursed a pounding headache, what the heck I have gotten myself into. I am just. so. tired. And yesterday and today I have suffered headaches and mild nausea during and after classes. I am thinking that it’s from concentrating so hard and endlessly conjugating verbs.
I am happy when my instructor gets up to go to the bathroom or to make herself a tea. I am happy when the school has recess and I can go hang out and speak English with the other students.
Don’t get me wrong. I am enjoying myself (I think). Let me re-phrase that. I AM enjoying myself. But I am just. so. tired. I am speaking, reading, BREATHING Spanish all the time. My instructor doesn’t speak English. Any clarification I ask for is in Spanish. If I’m not entirely sure what her explanation means, I defer to the dog-eared English-Spanish dictionary that lies on the desk between us.
The strange thing is that I constantly find myself inadvertantly translating from French to Spanish in my head, and sometimes speaking to my instructor in French when I mean for Spanish to come out. My brain is working triple-time.
This is what I wanted. This is what I needed. But it is difficult and my brain hurts.
I know that this mental strain is natural for language learners learning the target language in a complete immersion environment. The way I am feeling not is not unlike the way I felt when I moved to Mexico for a year 4 years ago.
And admittedly, today was easier than yesterday.
I have an intermediate level of Spanish and a good accent but I struggle with the irregular past tense, my prepositions are all over the place, and don’t even bother to ask me what I would do if I were to win a million dollars because I am at loss at how to use the el condicional tense in Spanish.
The cool thing is that my instructor told me I have a bit of a Mexican accent when I speak Spanish and my speech is peppered with Mexican slang (mostly vulgar words that shouldn’t be used in formal discourse). I’m happy that my acquired Mexican-ness is still intact, even though I left the country for good over three years ago.
Anyway, I am making progress, and having a good time, but I am very happy when class wraps up for the day and I don’t have to think before I speak.
Being a language teacher myself, I have perspective on the situation at hand, and have gained a new appreciation for my own English and French students.
It’s all uphill from here.
58 Comments
Girl, I feel your pain. In uni I suffered through some of that headache and thought I would puke all over the place. What was worse was that I had a serious Spanish class followed by French followed by Russian and then English literature. There was no break between any of these classes. And yes, I picked this strange schedule. By the end of it I was writing English words with Cyrillic characters.
You'll get through it though. It's funny, when we were in Madrid I couldn't remember anything of the Spanish I'd learned and when stuck all I could think of was French…which didn't help at all.
As for the condicional, how different from French is it? I remember breezing through the tenses in Spanish because of the similarities to French…but then, my brain was fried so who really knows.
Good luck…you'll make it!
That would be so so so hard for me! You're doing awesome.
When I was in Germany a few years ago and someone would speak to me in german, I'd answer in spanish – even though my spanish is horrific. Le sigh.
My instructor doesn't speak English.
Those are the best instructors to have, you realize just how much of the language you don't know. On the other hand, it can be incredibly mentally taxing.
I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and I'm studying it right now on my own so that I can take a Spanish conversation course next semester. I wish I had someone right now that I could speak to on a daily basis, I'm sure it would really accelerate my growth in terms of learning the language. Right now, I can read Spanish pretty well but I struggle with speaking it.
The strange thing is that I constantly find myself inadvertantly translating from French to Spanish in my head, and sometimes speaking to my instructor in French when I mean for Spanish to come out. My brain is working triple-time.
lol, I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that too. I'm also taking a German class right now (are you having fun with 'die' 'der' and 'das' yet?; I remember you said you were trying to learn Deutsch also)and sometimes I will answer my German instructor in Spanish when I'm supposed to be thinking in German. It's crazy, I start thinking in Spanish when I get into German class.
Yikes, that sounds intense. I can totally relate though. When I was taking German, I almost dreaded going and pretty much cried during each class. I looked forward to the breaks where I could breathe and speak english. You will be fine though and be happy you did this in end. Look forward to reading more of this adventure.
Man, this course does sound intense! It definitely sounds like you getting your money's worth. The good thing is that you are saying each day it gets easier, so that shows progress. All this to say: Sí se puede and Hwaiting!
Note: It's funny that I went to Madrid to become more fluent (orally), and was a bit disappointed; I practically had to beg people to speak to me in Spanish. Instead, many spoke English and even French to me lol. Now, I'm thinking I should have went to Guatemala!
About the tenses, I definitely think you will come to understand the conditional & conditional perfect(including in combo with imperfect and past perfect subjunctive) through much practice through scenarios/dialogues and drilling, as I believe this course will provide, so no worries. I still have to practice these too.
The worst part I found about total immersion isn't just the beginning when your brain gets tired, but the midway point when, somehow, your brain starts to forget ALL of the languages you've ever learned. At least, that's what mine did when I first came to France.
You're brave to take on another one so intensely. Can't wait to hear when you break through to the other side of the immersion process! Good luck!
Sierra Leone was okay becoz they spoke
pidgeon English. Tanzania and Kenya were
beastly becoz not only did i not know the
language but I was often mistaken as a
local kikuyu girl. So everyone spoke to
me in Swahili eventhough I explained
that I am "Merikani" then came this verbal
smackdown from a Kenyan woman…..
"You local girls go to school abroad and return
thinking that you are too good to speak your
own language shame!!"
after that tongue lashing I promptly
learned conversational Swahili – haha!
Hakuna matata! Pole pole dada
– kwaheri!
This would be me if I had to do it in French. French was really hard for me to learn and I barely remember any of the one year of university level French that I took. It takes me a lot of energy to remember and process it whereas Spanish is what comes easy for me (I took Spanish for years which is why I am much more comfortable with it.) I think your head hurting means that it's sinking in. Immersion is tiring at the beginning but you're learning and retaining a lot more than you realize. Make sure to have some fun! 🙂
@tanya: Dang lady I didn't know your were such a polyglot!?!? Russian?! God bless you. I struggle with German, don't know how you can do Russian! The Spanish and French conditional is basically the same, but I just can't seem to remember the past conditional for Spanish, argh!
@Deidre: I find myself saying "ein" instead of "un"! Can't get these languages straight in my head…
@homespunwisdom: Thanks for the comment! I am convinced that no matter how many years I study German I will never be able to speak it fluently or perfectly due to those neutral articles and forever-changing cases! And I was saying above, I keep on inserting German articles when I mean to use Spanish. Just can't win!
@Rhona: Language learning can be so frustrating, yet so rewarding, at the same time.
@Afromorena: That's so interesting about Spain! I haven't been to Madrid in a number of years, but I distinctly remember going with my mom and NOBODY spoke English. At the time I spoke no Spanish so needless to say it was a difficult trip!
@Kerry: Thank you! There are times where I have issues flicking the English switch back on in my brain, so I definitely know what you mean!
@globetrotter: Thanks for coming by! I felt the same helplessness when I travelled to Tanzania- people kept on thinking I was a local and kept wondering why I wouldn't speak to them in Swahili!!
@Terri: I sure hope so! I'm actually feeling like my Spanish is getting worse on some days, though!
Ha, I definitely went through the English to French to Spanish translation path for a while! I took French for 5 years in college, and it was frustrating at first to have a complete sentence ready in French only to realize that in Spanish my eloquent sentence on the companionship of canines had to be reduced to "I like dog." But I got there, and now I physically struggle to dig up any of my long-forgotten French words from the dark corners of my brain while Spanish comes easily. Hope your days keep getting better!
@Emily: Wow, I didn't realize that you had so much French under your belt! I find that when I don't know a word in Spanish, I just say the FRench word with a Spanish accent… Sometime it works and sometimes it doesn't…
I suck at languages. Good for you for jumping in the deep end.
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