No Aprendiendo la Lengua

Even in Spain, sometimes I have bad days. There are those rare days when I can only see the ugly—I only smell cigarette smoke and car exhaust, I only hear the noisy engines of mopeds whizzing by, I step in dog poop on the sidewalk and everyone seems to be scowling.
Current mood: sad (and fragile)

The bad days tend to coincide with my bad days in Spanish class. I have now taken 4 weeks of intensive Spanish and I feel very frustrated. Today we had a test and I bombed it. I still don’t know which verb tense to use when and the irregular verbs are killing me. Last night I had to confess to Brad that I didn’t actually know how to say “to be” in Spanish. Embarrassing.

It is impossible to acquire a new language in mere weeks – even months. But . . . that means I have to work at this for years??? (Sigh) Even geniuses like Brad need years to become fluent in a language, but I’ve always had the feeling that I’m not the brightest crayon in the language acquisition box. Learning Spanish is important to me because language and culture are always completely intertwined.

I am more than happy to be prayed for, if anyone wishes to do so. We don’t have a faith community over here yet and that makes it tough. However, my psychic partner, Mom, always knows how to cheer me on. Just today (just in time) I received a letter from Mom and a West African saying is written on the card: Not to know is bad . . . but not to wish to know is worse.