Spanish is Hard

I just swore loudly and turned off the Rosetta Stone.  This was in extreme frustration that arises when you are tested on something and have no idea what are the answers.  This experience makes you feel as if you know nothing and will never know anything.  That is not a good feeling.

On the other hand I know that this is part of the method by which I am learning Spanish.  The claim made is that the program uses the same method by which small children learn language.  This is essentially by seeing something and then having someone ask you what it is/does.  When you get it wrong you are told to try it again until you have abjectly failed.  Then you are given the answer and tested on it repeatedly until you know it.  If you ever want half the reason why two year old children are often full of rage, this is it.

Every single moment in Rosetta Stone is a test.  Still, something like nine months into the program I still get little quivers of test anxiety in my stomach.  I am not someone who generally feels much anxiety, and the only person who will know if I succeed or fail is myself.  But Rosetta Stone has a special "Bong" sound specifically designed to make you feel failure.  This sound is so powerful that even though I get a very large majority of the answers right, a couple of bongs will make me feel extremely crappy.

The last time I talked about studying Spanish I proudly predicted that I would have completed the program.  I am less than halfway through even though the amount I study is close to the same.  This is because the program is very largely based on going back to earlier lessons and repeating them.  It is at these moments that I feel like I am learning something because they are generally very easy.  At some point those lessons felt like this last lesson, being told you failed when you were guessing.

I know that I am actually learning, at the very same time I feel like I am not.  I can pick out some words on the radio.  I am beginning to construct sentences that are not rote but I create for a new situation.  I could ask for a room for the night, how much it will cost, and ask for directions and probably understand them.  I have got around in Spanish speaking countries with none of that.  I am learning, but it feels so, so slowly.  But this is what learning a language is like.  Language is enormous, complicated, subtle.  It takes those most able to learn it (young children) years to achieve some fluency.  I don't ever expect to have anything approaching fluency unless I relocate to a Spanish speaking country and immerse myself in the culture, going out and struggling with communication, willing to fail, willing to sound like a fool.

The hardest parts of the language for me are unsurprising.  Learning English I was never taught the rules of grammar, I just learned how to say things the right way.  Just knowing the right way to say things is trouble when you are trying to learn the right way to say things.  I often have no idea if a verb is in the past or future tense.  I often have no idea when it's an i or an e or an o.  Wrong.  Fail.  I have great difficulty with the set of words for "this, that, here, it, there, is, now."  Este or esta or esto?  Or is it es?  Hay or hoy?  Of course there is the entire bafflement of gender for things that make no sense.  Why is a ceiling masculine and yet a house is feminine?

My trouble today was trying to conjugate different types of verbs in a variety of tenses (past, present, future) in conjunction with a fair amount of vocabulary that I have just learned.  Often you have to speak it.  I have no idea.  Bong!  Wrong!  Fail!

Still, the plan is to go to Nicaragua in the "winter" (far too far away for me right now).  At my present rate of progress I will be able to get around comfortably, and pleased with that ability.  That will be after fifteen months of study, unless I pick up this computer and smash into tiny pieces, and that is fast learning.  Compare it to four years of high school Spanish and the difference is extreme.

Writing this post has helped me overcome my rage.  My rage has not been helped by something like twelve straight weeks where the average temperature (not the average high, the overall average) has been 85F, 29C.  I got up this morning at dawn to walk the dog and sweated through my shirt.  I took a shower and sweated through my shirt while sitting on the couch.  I am about to drive to run some errands and will sweat through my shirt before the car is out of the driveway.  I need to scrub the pool, taking about twenty minutes and will lose enough liquid to have a noticeable change in my weight.  I start my day with three pints of water.  Still, nearly there until it cools down enough to be a warm summer's day everywhere else in the world.  Whine.  Moan.