Hmmm... After being so proud of the progress of my Spanish skills early last week, it didn't take long for me take a tumble down Pride Hill. On Thursday, I found out that Hector and Sandra's youngest son, Isaac, had broken his elbow and needed surgery. Another teacher went with me to the hospital, where Hector, Sandra, and several others were gathered. It was there that I found my Spanish to be woefully lacking. Yes, I know the Spanish word for elbow: codo. (A special shout out to my JCCC Spanish teacher, Martha, and her weekly trabalenguas [tongue twisters])
But, my speaking skills were woefully inadequate. Yes, both Erica and Hermes were there and could translate for me, but I want to be able to speak, well, for myself.
On Thursday and Friday, I filled in as best as I could for Sandra, helping in the pulperia at the school. I also somewhat helped with some of the banking on Friday afternoon. Hermes really did the bulk of that, again, because of my Spanish deficiency. I'm sure I'll get there, eventually. But, I'd really like to be fluent now.
On the positive side, just this morning I sucessfully talked to Sandra, using the subjunctive. I thought through my words in advance, and realized that I needed to use the subjunctive form of the verb in order to be correct. So I did. Successfully.
Progress, it seems, really does come poco a poco (little by little).
Yay for subjunctive!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you talk to yourself much, but if you do, try doing it in Spanish. All the practice with none of the performance anxiety. Plus you can always note down for yourself what you need to look up later to be able to say what you want to say, and you can say it to yourself several times until you get the grammatical form right. This system worked pretty well for me!
Thanks, Rachael. That's a great idea. I already do a little of that, but can always do more.
ReplyDeleteThe subjunctive form has been a bit of a stumbling block for me. Yet, I know that it's critically important to really speaking well.