This is Español
As I am now living in Panama, obviously, I am learning Spanish. Not the hardest, because I've heard Spanish throughout my life, but not the easiest, because it's not English!
People are speaking to me in Spanish which is good, but also.. a brain workout. I pick out the words I know and do my best to get the gist of things, but a lot of stuff goes over my head.
However, I feel like my knowledge is expanding every day. I have a hard time remembering verbs (much less the weird conjugations), but I'll get there. And while I feel like my knowledge is expanding, it is much easier to recognize and pick out words to understand the intent than it is to put together a thought with all the correct words and then pronounce it correctly when outputting that thought.
I've been told several things about learning a language. One, is that you'll get headaches. I think I've kinda gotten that a little. I wasn't sure if it was dehydrating (the usual headache culprit), but I'd been some drinking water, and it felt different. Whereas my usual dehydration headache is on 2 certain point, each on a side of my forehead, I'd gotten an almost-headache here that kinda just felt like a stuffy cloud in my brain.
Also, after concentrating on a conversation in Spanish for a little while, it becomes harder to focus on the words and continue to try to follow it. All and all, it makes me pretty tired to follow a lot of conversations in a day. It DEFINITELY helps when people slow down their speak, because then it gives me more time to properly hear the words, decide if I remember what the words means, and guess at the overall meaning. Faster takes more concentration and I get lost waaay more easily and end up not being able to pay attention anymore to what they're saying. At this point, I'm not learning as much from the faster conversations because it overloads my brain. But, at some point soon, I'll be able to all this without the brain overload.
Another thing I've been told: "You know you've made it when you start dreaming in the 2nd language." Of course, my thought was that I don't remember dreaming in any language. I guess I just haven't had any memorable dreams recently. Hopefully when I start dreaming in Spanish, I'll be able to remember it so that I can tell everybody about it (or at least just all the social media sites I'm on).
HOWEVER, I have found that I'm starting to think in Spanglish. Probably not a surprise, because that's how I'm talking. Can't quite do Spanish yet, but I have to do more than English! So, I just talk with a mix of words/phrases from both languages. Works for me. Writing this, I haven't had that messing around my head, but earlier this evening I was writing something and it came out Spanglish. And well, Spanish is suppose to be easy to spell, but I can't really spell in any language (except music!), so for things that others are going to see, I'll try to spell only words I can spell (or autocorrect will check).
As we're just passing midnight (in Panama), this'll make my time here a week. How time flies!
See ya
People are speaking to me in Spanish which is good, but also.. a brain workout. I pick out the words I know and do my best to get the gist of things, but a lot of stuff goes over my head.
However, I feel like my knowledge is expanding every day. I have a hard time remembering verbs (much less the weird conjugations), but I'll get there. And while I feel like my knowledge is expanding, it is much easier to recognize and pick out words to understand the intent than it is to put together a thought with all the correct words and then pronounce it correctly when outputting that thought.
I've been told several things about learning a language. One, is that you'll get headaches. I think I've kinda gotten that a little. I wasn't sure if it was dehydrating (the usual headache culprit), but I'd been some drinking water, and it felt different. Whereas my usual dehydration headache is on 2 certain point, each on a side of my forehead, I'd gotten an almost-headache here that kinda just felt like a stuffy cloud in my brain.
Also, after concentrating on a conversation in Spanish for a little while, it becomes harder to focus on the words and continue to try to follow it. All and all, it makes me pretty tired to follow a lot of conversations in a day. It DEFINITELY helps when people slow down their speak, because then it gives me more time to properly hear the words, decide if I remember what the words means, and guess at the overall meaning. Faster takes more concentration and I get lost waaay more easily and end up not being able to pay attention anymore to what they're saying. At this point, I'm not learning as much from the faster conversations because it overloads my brain. But, at some point soon, I'll be able to all this without the brain overload.
Another thing I've been told: "You know you've made it when you start dreaming in the 2nd language." Of course, my thought was that I don't remember dreaming in any language. I guess I just haven't had any memorable dreams recently. Hopefully when I start dreaming in Spanish, I'll be able to remember it so that I can tell everybody about it (or at least just all the social media sites I'm on).
HOWEVER, I have found that I'm starting to think in Spanglish. Probably not a surprise, because that's how I'm talking. Can't quite do Spanish yet, but I have to do more than English! So, I just talk with a mix of words/phrases from both languages. Works for me. Writing this, I haven't had that messing around my head, but earlier this evening I was writing something and it came out Spanglish. And well, Spanish is suppose to be easy to spell, but I can't really spell in any language (except music!), so for things that others are going to see, I'll try to spell only words I can spell (or autocorrect will check).
As we're just passing midnight (in Panama), this'll make my time here a week. How time flies!
See ya
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