Learning Spanish

We are 4 classes, or 16 hours, into our Spanish lessons. While these last couple of days have definitely been tougher then the first, we are breezing through lessons. I feel like we have found the magic diet pill, or the perfect get-rich-quick scheme – by immersing ourselves fully into our lessons and the culture, I am sure that we will be confidently speaking the language in no time.

Outside of our lessons, we are putting in another couple of hours of study plus constantly quizzing each other as we walk down the street and point out different things.

“Te gusta el gallo?” (Do you like the rooster?)
“No, no me gusta el gallo.” (No, I do not like the rooster.)

“Ese es tu perro?” (Is that your dog?)
“No, ese no es mi perro.” (No, that is not my dog.)

The toughest part of it all is the memorization of the many nouns, adjectives, etc. that get thrown our way every day. While some of them are easy due to the similarity with their English or French counterparts, others are completely unrelated and require employing some strategy to ensure they stick with us.

So, we have subscribed to the Michael Scott (a la “The Office”) theory of word association to help us remember some of the tougher words. Here are some examples, see if you can follow our train of thought!

The word for sour in Spanish is amargo
- I love my friend Margo!
- We have been known to have the odd drink when we are together
- When I drink, I like to have whiskey
- Ooh! A whiskey sour would be delicious right now!
- See…amargo is sour!

The word for rough in Spanish is aspero
- Keep in mind that the word for dog is perro
- The other day, we say one poor perro being violated by a group of other perros. From behind.
- Therefore…aspero is rough!

Okay, so I didn’t say our strategy was appropriate, just effective… =)