La lengua española
November 6, 2006

Spanish, what a beautiful language! I can't wait to be fluent. When I first arrived, I admit, I was definitely out of my element. Before landing I thought I could get by for a while knowing a few basic sentences with my solid comprehension of Latin languages and their structure. Man was I wrong. I've got to tell you, I'm not used to having difficulty communicating with people. Usually I can dance around sentences and somehow make my point, but these days, I can't form a proper sentence to save my life and people sound like they are talking in fast forward! The first 24 hours were so bad, I sent Sterling out to buy us coffees while I hid in our apartment because I was too embarrassed of my language skills and scared of the possiblity of someone striking up a conversation. Now I'm pleased to say that after a few days of studying and a little practice in the streets, I'm eager to meet new people and test my abilities. Sterling and I were so eager to learn, we even went to see a Spanish film on our second night and understood about 10 words, but hey, we tried. Apart from that, we've been watching a lot of spanish T.V., listening to a lot of Spanish music and reading anything we can get our hands on. I'm confident that we will be fully conversational by the end of the month. (that's not to say articulate...but it's a start)