Escuala de Espanol

"Learn a new language and get a new soul." ~Czech Proverb

As all of you know, I am desperate to learn Spanish… and not only because I want to talk to “the shirtless wonder,” but because I want to spend time with the locals and really learn about this beautiful place which I presently call “home.” I have now completed 2 weeks of lessons, and while I have certainly made significant progress, I also feel very overwhelmed.

After my unnecessary bus ride last Monday, I arrived at the correct school where I was immediately given a “test” to assess my level of competency in Spanish. I don’t know how long these tests usually take, but mine took approximately 18 seconds. As the result of my test, I was given one-on-one instruction for the whole week. Ignorance has its rewards.

There are 6 instructors at the school, ranging in English proficiency, and the instructor I had the first week was Roger. Roger is a 22 year old native Costa Rican who grew up, and still lives, on a farm about 45 minutes away from the school. That is 45 minutes of commute time, which for Roger involves a motorcycle and a bus (it is a wonder he is still alive) while his farm is probably only 10 miles outside of town. Roger speaks VERY good English, though he often acts like he doesn’t understand me in order to force me to communicate in Spanish… a successful tactic that I am sure I will thank him for later but right now frustrates the crap out of me.

My first two days of instruction I felt overwhelmed and thought I would never learn Spanish. By Wednesday I felt like things were really starting to click and by Friday, I was speaking in complete sentences, albeit very basic ones. Roger said he is very impressed by how quickly I am picking up that language and that in his 3 ½ years of teaching he has only had 2 other students who picked things up as quickly. I tried to explain to him the level motivation that “the shirtless wonder” provided, but as he forces me to speak to him only in Spanish, I don’t know how well it translated and he might have thought I was asking him to take off his shirt. And while his compliment made me feel very good, I am not willing to rule out the possibility that it was made because of the bottle of tequila I gave him at the end of the week as a thank you. Great, now he probably thinks I am trying to get him drunk to take advantage of him.

I left school Friday feeling great and even went out that night for dinner and drinks with a couple of the other students. During my cab ride home I had a brief conversation with my taxi driver in which I successfully communicated where I needed to go, that I was a student learning Spanish at Escuala D’Amore and that I was going to be living in Quepos for 5 months. Not too shabby after only one week of lessons and muchas cervesas.

On Saturday morning I awoke and prepared for round 2 of the farmers’ market with the goal of speaking only Spanish during the entire excursion. Not that I put too much pressure on myself or make lofty goals or anything. So I studied my fruits and vegetables before I left the house and felt prepared. I chose to walk to town again and lost approximately ¾ of a pound in sweat… which was great because I planned to stop by the Amish stand and buy some of their delicious desserts.

Overall my farmers’ market trip was a success… and I mostly got along in Spanish, though truth be told I was, for the most part, resorting to 1 or 2 word requests and not full sentences as I had planned. Turned out I was much better “versed” when I had the time to put my thoughts together and practice at mi casa. Once I had groups of people around me who were waiting for me to make my purchases, I clammed up a little bit. And while I had practiced the fruits and vegetables for my trip, I also went to the grocery store, where on my list of things to buy was charcoal. I won’t even begin to tell you the difficulty of that purchase.

What is worse than having to resort to 2 word phrases is that I understood almost nothing that was said to me as everyone talked so quickly that words ran together and I couldn’t decipher any words I recognized. Which reminds me of a story about my Mother…

As you all know, my family is British, thus my parents have British accents. When we moved to Texas, although English is my parents’ native language, people seemed to have a very hard time understanding them. Therefore they were often treated as though they were speaking a foreign language (one that was different than the Mexicans used, causing great confusion for the very simple minded).

One day my Mom was in a hardware store (no idea what she was doing there as she is STILL amazed that you can record one show while watching another… so I don’t really believe she was particularly inclined to fix anything on that day) and asked the owner of the store for something. The man didn’t understand her and asked her to repeat herself, which she did. He still was not able to understand her although she was speaking perfect English (the same language he was allegedly speaking) and said “Ma’am if you are gonna want to talk with people in these parts, you are going to have to slow down.” While I always thought of that man as a simple minded “good ole’ boy,” I now get his point.

This week I continued one-on-one instruction, though my instructor was Mitzi, who is a 33 year old mother of 2 boys. Mitzi lives a little farther away from the school than Roger, though her commute does not involve a motorcycle, thus adding at least 10 years to her life expectancy. Mitzi lives with her husband, sons and in-laws and is a devout Catholic (which is common in these parts). While we all know I am not a particularly religious person, I understood her religious devotion as I decided I would probably pray a lot too if I had to live with my in-laws.

Mitzi is a very kind woman with a great spirit who, while not particularly comfortable speaking in English, can literally write out every word in English that you can imagine. She is currently taking English classes 1 night a week as her goal is to teach at a public school like her husband. While I really enjoyed my time with Mitzi this week, I didn’t feel like I absorbed as much as I did with Roger, but that could be due in part to the fact that I feel as though my brain is going to explode with the amount of Spanish I am trying to take in.

I found out today that there aren’t any new students coming for 3 more weeks, so I will continue to have one-on-one instruction as there will only be me and 2 other students at the school. I definitely feel like I am getting my moneys worth.

I thought I would close this posting by telling you the most important things I learned in my first 2 weeks of Spanish lessons…

1. Native Costa Ricans are actually called “Ticos” or “Ticas” so I was wrong in earlier blogs when I called them Ticans. My apologies.

2. While the local Costa Rican beer is Imperial, the Ticos actually prefer to drink Corona. I wonder if the Mexicans drink Imperial?

3. My spelling is no better in English than in Spanish. Actually it might be worse. The other day I was IM’ing with my friend Brooke and was adding in Spanish words here and there (Brooke is wicked smart, so I always try to impress her with my “vast knowledge”). At one point Brooke responded that I “must be learning a different type of Spanish than she did as she thought…..” So much for trying to impress her, as I had to explain that it was the same type of Spanish… just a worse speller attempting to use it.

4. When you ask a question in Spanish, you move the verb in the sentence, thus making my pick up line “Es usted medico?” instead of “Used es medico?” Thank goodness I learned this important lesson prior to actually using my line; I certainly wouldn’t want the doc to think I was uneducated.

5. Firefighters in Costa Rica are not what girls’ fantasies are made of. When we were playing a memory game to learn the words for professions, I stated “Me gusta bomberos” (I like firefighters). When asked why, I explained my fascination, to which Mitzi responded “Not in Costa Rica.” I then went online and pulled up pictures of the Houston Fire Department’s calendar (which was coincidentally sent to me via email the day before….no really, I swear it was) to visually explain my interest as there was a good chance I didn’t communicate it particularly well in Spanish. When Mitzi saw the pictures she was very surprised and assured me the bomberos of Costa Rica were nothing like that. I am glad I found this information out so soon, as I had certainly planned a field trip to the local fire station. Guess I will go to the beach instead.

6. The words married (casada) and tired (cansado) are very similar. Do I really need to make an additional joke here?

7. While the word “caliente” means hot, it should only be used to describe something like a cup of coffee, and never yourself. When you use this word in the form of a self description, you are actually professing to all those around that you are horny. Now this is the sort of stuff the Spanish cd’s should be teaching. This is much more useful than learning the word “cauliflower” as I can’t think of a single situation where I would ever embarrass myself using that word. I also can’t think of a time where I would use the word “caliente” to describe myself to others, as I think those feelings should be kept to yourself…unless of course “the shirtless wonder” is at your house and you have had a few glasses of wine. A girl can dream you know...

Ok, off to practice new pick up lines… I mean Spanish.