Lift off

So, I've now been back in Guatemala for 2 weeks now. The first week was spent going to Spanish school. The second week was spent fighting traveler's stomach. This week, I should begin teaching at the school. We were supposed to teach today, but because of a tropical storm, the school is closed.

Week 1: Spanish school

Each day, for six hours a day, I talked and completed exercises in Spanish with my teacher, Sylvia. Sylvia was my teacher from my last trip here and I was delighted that: 1) she was still teaching at the school and 2) that I was her student. At our first lesson, I could tell that my Spanish had improved tremendously. She even said so.

I was in a completely different place than I was 2 years ago when I went through this exact program. At that time, I barely knew how to conjugate verbs in the present tense.

I was given a new workbook for "Intermediate Spanish Speakers." It's a book of activities that the Spanish school has self-published. I was excited to be labelled "intermediate" and took some pride in that designation.

The first days were pretty easy. Sylvia quizzed my knowledge of irregular conjugations of verbs and various terms in Spanish. I completed this exercise with surprising ease. Those first two days, we went through various exercises. Most of them were reviews of terms I already had a decent grasp on. It kind of felt like the first day of school when you're a kid. The teachers basically review things you learned last year and you feel pretty confident ("I'm a 3rd grader now and this stuff is EASY!").

The third day was a bit different. The energy that I had on the first two days seemed to be missing, along with my immediate and ready knowledge of Spanish words and phrases to explain what I wanted to. Spanish at my level still consists of translating words from English to Spanish. I feel, with my practice, that I've learned a number of shortcuts and the limitations of my ability to communicate. It gives new meaning to the term "intermediate." My brain works as an intermediary between English and Spanish.

I don't "think" in Spanish yet. However, there are some signs that I'm sticking one foot into fluency. Repeated exposure to certain phrases become embedded in my brain and come forth immediately in speech and thought. For example, I find myself say, "Creo que" and "Creo que si" frequently. They mean, "I think that" and "I think so." I'm surprised by how often I used both of this phrases. They're very useful and they roll of the tongue easily (I don't have to search for them).