Garrett's story:
It occurs to me lately that a lot of the young Spanish undergrads on campus here have been speaking Spanish for a shorter time than I have. (I started learning nearly 18 years ago.) This is a little disconcerting, because they speak it rather well, and with a lot more ease than I do.When we got here I had high hopes for what the experience was going to do for my linguistic ability. More than anything I wanted to learn to speak street talk, you know, just casual, shoot-the-breeze Spanish. I was already well-equipped with about as much classroom, academic Spanish as anyone can get. I spoke it daily to my students, heard it and parroted it to my professors, and could recite poetry quite nicely. But put me in a bar with a couple of friends, and I was about as chatty as a flowerpot.
The remarkable transformation I was expecting did not come at first, nor second, nor ever really. I was disappointed to say the least. The social atmosphere in the library (where I spend the majority of my waking hours) is something between a mime convention and a morgue. For the life of me I could not get any exercise for my tongue. The worst feeling was the aching irony that in Chapel Hill, I would be speaking Spanish a guaranteed minimum of 2 hours daily(teaching). In Spain, I was lucky to do more than order bread at the bakery most days.
Things improved. Thanks to an attentive friend that we've made, a guy named Iñaki who invites us to go out and chats with me over coffee, I've begun to feel as though I can do this casual talking thing. More than anything my goal is that Spanish no longer be an effort, which it continues to be, though less so all the time.
I now can say that I know I have improved. My vocabulary, especially where everyday things are concerned, has expanded a great deal, and my fluency is much better, though everything varies day to day.
Jisook's Story:
The spanish language is difficult. They have actual verbs for every action and thought that you can imagine and each of these verbs is conjugated into a million tenses (of which the preterite tense is the worst!), each with its own ending. You need to be able to remember all of these and then pull out just the right ones at just the right times. And in addition to that, you have to intersperse it with pronouns and prepositions and such. Ah, and then there's the mood. Every time you want someone to do something, you can't just say, "I want you to give me your doughnuts." No, instead you have to say something like, "I want that you should give me your doughnuts." It's called the subjunctive mood (fancy!). Speaking spanish is like doing complex arithmetic in your head and spouting out the answers as fast as you possibly can. Fast is important because Spaniards speak quickly, very quickly, too quickly. But usually if you nod and say, "Sí, mm-hmm, sí!" people think you understand. The good news is that in spite of all of these difficulties, I have managed to increase my knowledge of spanish by 200-fold. Impressed, are you? Well, you wouldn't be if you knew how little I knew before I got here. But, I have improved. Before I said things like:
"What is the name of your telephone?" I asked the hotel clerk. Of course, I meant number, not name.
"Butner does not like foreigners." How did I know that 'extranjeros' means 'foreigners' and not also 'strangers'?
Now I can understand simple questions and even
express simple opinions. Yay!