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Saturday, January 19, 2002 After two weeks of this latest bout of intensive Spanish classes, it's become clear that my Spanish has come some distance during the last 18 months, far enough now that when I hang out with other furriners, I sound like I have some idea of what I'm doing. I sound like I'm actually beginning to speak Spanish. There frequently seems to be an inverse relationship between how loudly a furriner speaks Castellano and their ability with the language -- the higher the volume, the more numerous the errors. Kind of counter-intuitive, but there it is. This has all gotten to the point where I'm finding myself wanting to spend less time with folks who speak middling, error-riddled Spanish and more time with folks who are fluent. (Until I'm with fluent folks and find myself feeling like a total clod, producing middling, error-riddled Spanish.) It's a strange position to be in, as a year ago I often found myself on the downside of that equation, mangling the language on a regular basis. Before coming to Madrid, I spent a month or two working my way through two on-tape Spanish courses, a three-tape beginner's set by Berlitz (not so great), then a 12-tape beginner's set by Barron's (better). Coupled with the hilarious vestigial ability from two years of Spanish in 7th and 8th grades, where I paid little attention and learned just this side of zip, I was somehow able to put across an image of someone whose Spanish was rusty but not pathetic. Whereas it actually was pathetic. Once here, I showed up at the school where I spent much of the next eight or nine months, stumbled my way through a brief assessment conversation/test -- managing somehow to convince the person who assessed me that I could handle classes at the low-advanced level. And of course turning out to be immediate roadkill in that class, completely out of my depth. After several days of suffering, I pleaded for lower-level instruction, got placed in a middle-intermediate group, where I generally filled the role of He With The Weakest Spanish. Working my adorable butt off, my Castellano gradually improved until I seemed to settle in at low-advanced -- still above than my actual level. And there I slaved and toiled, generally remaining in the position of scrambling to keep up. There were reasons for this. I kept returning to the States periodically, torpedoing continuity. I spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the computer writing in English and snooping around cyberspace, a mostly English-speaking universe. So while I took classes and read Spanish-language newspapers and books (always armed with a dictionary), I got plenty of input in Spanish but precious little opportunity to speak the language outside of class. And it showed. A phenomenon with language students here is something called intercambio: interchange. Someone like me gets together with a Spaniard studying English, we talk about whatever we feel like, half the time in English, half the time in Spanish. A pretty swell idea, really -– whoever came up with it given an award. Or a friendly pat on the butt. Something. I've gone through a bunch of intercambios in my time here, most of them brief, often just one-time deals. Except for one with a guy named Jaime who spent a year of high school as an exchange student near Columbus, Ohio. On arrival stateside, he spoke little English and has told me that keeping the television on for the language input was a major learning aide -- Who's The Boss in particular. Kind of scary, that. But he suggested I use the TV more than I'd been using it. And damned if it didn't help. It not only helped, it became an easy way of gauging the state of my language comprehension. So my Spanish has improved, and I'm trying to capitalize on that. I've got two intercambios today, one with Jaime and a first-time one with a woman named Pilar, a Spanish teacher. Hope I don't shame myself. After that I'll be heading out to dinner with a motley assortment of fellow students (a American, a German, and the Portuguese guy from my current class, Pedro) and two of their S.O.'s, both Spanish women. Could be a free-for-all, languagewise. Good clean fun. Later. rws 7:29 AM [+] |