For months and months you’ve been watching the little bar on the sidebar of this blog. It illustrated the progress of our language studies at the university in Cuernavaca. Finally, in late spring, it reached 100%<\/b>. Celebration! But what does that actually mean?<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, in practical terms it meant that we had finished our studies at the university, and were ready to move on to our "Orientation Year" which we are now beginning. We were finished because we had completed (in theory<\/i>) a certain level of Spanish, which meant that we (supposedly<\/i>) could figure out how to basically express our thoughts using correct Spanish grammar.<\/p>\n
Sounds good right? Well, slow down cowboy. What does that really<\/i> mean? Where are we, the Cottrills, at – in real life?<\/p>\n
It means that, one day I can carry on a 15 minute conversation with someone. The next day I stand baffled at the checkout counter while the cashier tries to ask me something simple (like "do you have 1 peso so I can give you a 50 peso bill in change?").<\/p>\n
It means that I can have a great conversation with a friend, and afterward realize I meant to say,"Maybe you can visit my house" but really said,"We all visited my house".<\/p>\n
It means I may have a good vocabulary when it comes to cooking, but not know the word for "stir".<\/p>\n
My brain works in mysterious ways, and my Spanish ability varies drastically from day to day. I learn things well, but usually need to hear them first a huge number of times, and then after all that I’ll still forget when I need the word the most! I’m sure a lot of you out there know what I’m talking about.<\/p>\n
So yes, we’ve come a long way. And no, we’re not fluent comfortable Spanish speakers. We’ve had more than one person tell us that it was about 5 years before they really were able to comfortably carry on regular conversations. 3 years, 3 months to go!<\/i> \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n
Thankfully, our leadership considers this year (orientation year<\/i>) to be a language learning<\/b> year. It gives us a chance to get out of the school where everyone TALKS VERY CLEARLY, to the "real world" where we have no clue what anyone is talking about (with all their accents, "improper" Spanish, idioms, word play, incomplete words and sentences…).<\/p>\n
We will most likely try to work with a tutor for most of this year as well, to continue our more formal language study on top of the regular conversations and interactions we have every day. Hannah and Nathanael will also be continuing school in Spanish.<\/p>\n
So now that I’ve explained that, I’ll have to put something new in the sidebar for you to watch!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For months and months you’ve been watching the little bar on the sidebar of this blog. It illustrated the progress of our language studies at the university in Cuernavaca. Finally, in late spring, it reached 100%. Celebration! But what does that actually mean? Well, in practical terms it meant that we had finished our studies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practical-matters","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"\n