Spanglish

Lou: It’s Friday. My brain hurts, my body hurts. This was my last week of “full time” classes. Next week I switch from 20 hours a week(plus free extra activities) to 4. It’s as if some kind of extraterrestrial creature from a sci-fi movie is (slowly, very slowly) taking over my brain. Am I talking/ thinking in English/ Spanish? I don’t know anymore. There are times I can understand very well in Spanish & times I understand nothing. Usually I form sentences very slowly & incorrectly. Sometimes well enough to get my point across, though. Iforget words in English, I forget words in Spanish…

My teacher told me that there are about 14 verb tenses in Spanish, I’ve become acquainted with about ½ of them. How many do we have in English? Past, present, future and maybe a couple more? For this reason I get so hung up on I/he/you/they did something and in what point in time that that they will do it (or did it, or maybe will do/did) that I don’t get past the verb when I try to respond to someone. Which in Spanish happens to be the first part of the sentence. So you can see why one person calls me “muda”: mute.

So is the way of language learning when one isn’t a kid, I guess. Dan always amazes me with how many random vocabulary words he knows. I think the biggest help for him has been free classes that the institute offers in which you can ask to work on whatever Spanish problems you have. There have been so few people that we can get good individual help from the teacher.

I´m sore because I decided to try a class of Copoeira. A classmate from the states was taking it, and I decided to give it a try. From what I remember from a live show I saw way back when at SCSU, it was a dance created by Brazilian slaves—and it was actually a martial art hidden within the dance. The kicks are not so foreign to my body, but the other moves & handstands are not something that I am used to. Well, really, I’m not so used to any of it! For this reason, I hope my body can somewhat recover before the next class Tuesday!