A girl's journey to becoming multilingual. Native English speaker.El español en la preparatoria.Le français à l'université.Hopefully, more in the future.
Oh man... thanks for catching that! I wrote that post 5eva ago when I was in an introductory French class, so you know... lots of mistakes all the time.
That means I'm (supposed to be) thesising all the time, while classes are at a minimum (thank God, hallelujah). So I've decided to drop my French grammar and composition class, the main reason for doing so being that it was going to be more work than I wanted to do while I'm working on my thesis and figuring out certain things for next year (housing, finances, etc.). Even though I won't be in a formal language class, I will still be using some of my language skills. My university has a translation club that facilitates a language conversation group between native speakers and learners. I'll be participating in one-on-one conversations as a native English speaker and as a Spanish learner, so I'm excited for that! I wanted to be matched up with a native French speaker, but unfortunately, that wasn't able to happen. If you're reading this and would like to help me out with my French (and maybe also want to practice English), send me a message, and we can exchange Skype names or something.
So apparently I look Mexican...? My shuttle driver asked if I was from Mexico and then if I spoke Spanish. I was able to have a short conversation with him en español. Él es de Tijuana y le dije que he visitado Michoacán cuando tenía 16 años. Me ayudó encontrar la estación de tren y cuando yo tenía salir, me dijo que mi español es "100%". Yayyy... Estoy contenta :)
...and I feel like... maybe... taking this class was a mistake.
But at that same time, no, it wasn't a mistake. At least not until my original class section was disbanded, and I moved to another section.
So some background, I guess... Before I took this Spanish class on grammar and composition, I hadn't taken a single Spanish class for three whole years. That's not to say that I completely isolated myself from the language; I wrote a little bit on Lang-8, practiced speaking with my sister every once in awhile, watched TV and movies, and listened to music in Spanish.
This September, I started the course with a Colombian professor (I note this because my high school Spanish teacher was Mexican, and I found that my professor's Colombian accent wasn't too difficult to get used to; I barely noticed it all, honestly). It was a small class of about 9 people. I was the only senior; there was one junior, and then the rest were sophomores, I'm pretty sure. It took a couple of weeks to get back into Spanish mode. (I took French last year and am also taking a French course concurrently, so that would bleed into my spoken language somewhat often) My language in compositions was pretty unsophisticated at the beginning, and I found it difficult to participate in discussions in class (mostly because I tend to be shy in seminars and precepts/recitations/whatever your college calls it), but then I started warming up to the people in my class, and we had a really good dynamic going on. It started to show in my grades and in comments from my professor. I was beginning to feel more confident in my Spanish skills.
And then halfway through the semester, some changes in the department happened, and our section was broken up into four other sections that meet at the same time as our original one. Three other guys from my original section and I moved to the new class, which now totals 13 students. Our professor's from Spain, so it took me awhile to get used to his accent (Spain Spanish accents are the hardest for me to understand tbh). But the hardest part was probably being in a class with mostly freshmen and sophomores who pretty much all sound fluent. I'm back to feeling intimidated by how poor my Spanish sounds. I also feel like I'm not learning the grammar like I did in my old section, so my compositions and quizzes/exams seem to suffer (I'm not sure that they actually do in terms of grades, but my grammatical errors are pointed out to me more often--or at least it feels that way.)
And apparently, we have skits or something next week, and I. just. don't. want. to. do. them.
I know my Spanish isn't fluent. HA. Not even close. But I know that, in general, I can communicate with native speakers decently well, but this class makes me feel like I don't know anything. Like I speak so much slower in class because I'm always second guessing my use of vocabulary or my conjugation of a verb.
And now I'm wondering: other than my compositions marginally improving, what did I learn? What was the point?
This week in French class, we learned about "le langage familier" et "le verlan" and had to memorize a bunch of vocabulary. Par exemple:
l'argot | le langue courant
un mec, keum | un homme
moche | laid
le blé | l'argent
chialer | pleurer
meuf | femme
chanmé | méchant
*l'italique indique le verlan.
It's safe to say that we pretty much sound like we're actually 20-somethings or just like we've been speaking the language for a really long time. Lol yeah right... Even after learning the vocab, I feel like this week's lessons have shown me just how far away I am from being even remotely fluent. I can barely understand a person who's speaking French at a normal to fast pace; it's even harder when they're throwing in words I don't know yet.
But at least I can curse someone out in French now, right? La chose la plus importante de français, n'est-ce pas? :)
So I'm in the library writing my Spanish paper, and a lady came in to clean the chalkboard, and she asked me if I was a freshman because she's never seen me in the science library before. I told her that I was a senior, and she was so surprised and told me I look so young. So I asked, how old? And she said, 15. *sigh* I'm never going to escape this, am I? lol
Anyway, I'm kinda bored and lonely here, so I started talking to her, and we introduced ourselves. She was super nice! And then I asked her in Spanish if she spoke Spanish (I figured she did because she had a Spanish accent and looked Hispanic and then her name kinda confirmed it), and she said yes and that she was from Puerto Rico. We talked for a bit in Spanish about where I'm from and if other people in my family speak the language (I think she thought that I was semi-fluent... maybe?) and what I'm studying and about family and things, and she was so nice! And she told me that I speak Spanish really well, which made me the happiest human. But actually though.
SO YAY! :D :D :D
And now that I feel better about my language skills, Imma whip out this Spanish paper like a boss.
Aujourd'hui j'ai rencontré un ami de mon amie qui est un locuteur natif de français. Je lui ai dit que mon français n'est pas très bien, que je l'ai étudié pour seulement une année, blablabla. Il était très sympa et patient avec mes erreurs et m'a donné des conseils pour améliorer ma parole. Par exemple, il m'a dit: "utilisez le mot 'genre' et dites "eeuuhhh" tout le temps." Nous parlerons pendant 30 o 45 minutes chaque semaine et j'éspère que la pratique m'aide parler mieux.
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