Escuela Update; Anything but Boring
Oct 3rd, 2013 by willmarks
The Don Quijote Spanish Language School is treating me well; I am learning quickly and enjoying the life of a student, even doing my homework. Still, I have yet to join my classmates late night at the clubs, but at least they invite me (knowing I won’t show up). In this my fourth of six weeks, my classmates are from Norway, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, and Finland. Each week, some new students join and others leave, most staying about 2 weeks with the goal a combination of furthering language skills and fraternizing. I have yet to be in class with an American at this point, although most of the chatter in the hallways is in English, certainly the common language among students here.
Today we learned the word, “aburrido”, which means “boring”. Most vocabulary has no commonality and takes significant repetition for it to stick, yet certain words are easy due to English similarity (“perfecto”, “correcto”, “difícil”). Aburrido clicked from the beginning as I thought of opposites; burritos are anything but boring!
After class today, I felt like working on my speaking ability and all was going well with lunch at a café counter coming to me exactly as I thought it was ordered; nice job Will (pat self on the back). Then I made my way to the gym, a bit too proud of my language skills. I asked someone, “dónde están las toallas” (where are the towels?), likely with a perfectly incorrect accent, and he responded with, “they are upstairs”.
