Spanish Progress Report #2

So for the last month I’ve made myself feel morally culpable every time an Anglo-Saxon syllable leaves my lips.  I’m in Spain, and I’m going to speak Spanish!!!  Now, I’ve gotten so used to speaking Spanish that sometimes I feel guilty after saying something to myself in Spanish, then I realize it was Spanish, and feel kind of awesome and strange all at the same time.  That’s a good example of how Progress Report #2 is.  Very confused, like I’m in language purgatory.  The very night after I wrote Progress Report #1, I had my first dream in Spanish.  Hooray!!!  That has followed with several nights of very strange half lucid dreams in half-English, half-Spanish, only one of which I can remember: I was a museum curator, definitely speaking Spanish.  So I wake up every morning very confused but pleased.  What was stranger was last night I was writing in my journal, and I started to fall asleep.  I woke up, began writing, and realized two lines down that I’d written it all in Spanish, and hadn’t even noticed. 

            My comprehension has gotten a TON better, thanks in no small part to the podcasts I listen to: Nómadas (a travel show), Documentos RNE (a documentary show about random bits of Spanish history), and Notes in Spanish (the old standby, snippets of culture for Spanish learners).  To improve comprehension, I even adapted an old staying-awake-on-the-road-between-Oskaloosa-and-Omaha technique:  I sometimes try to repeat in real time what the narrators say, which is IMPOSSIBLE and probably makes me appear like a crazy, but it’s worth it.  Helps my ear and my tongue.  One thing I’m happy about is that I’ve started to get a sense of humor in Spanish.  I kind of miss laughing!!  I can understand a few jokes now, and actually made a few (made my host mom LOL the other day, and not just because I made some amusing language faux-pas).  Another fun thing was practicing “trabalenguas” or tongue twisters in Spanish with a guy at choir yesterday.  My favorite was “Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal” which means “Three sad tigers ate wheat in a wheat field.”  I taught him “Peter piper” and “She sells seashells” which was just mean: Spanish have enough difficulty with the s/sh sound as it is!!! 

            All in all, my conversation skills have grown IMMENSELY through choir, talking to my family, and the family of my conversation partner.  I’m feeling more comfortable, but still not where I want to be!!  I am though getting to the point where I feel more comfortable talking to a bilingual native speaker in Spanish rather than English.  It’s just easier (less vocab reduction and talking slow to have to worry about), and conversation always seems to go faster in Spanish :) Expecting a little plateau here: going to an English professors’ conference this weekend, and my parents are coming next weekend, so a lot of English, but I’m totally excited for both!!!!  And, I’ve still got many weeks ahead to improve.  Sorry for another marathon post, but it does seem to be the trend, huh?  ¡Hasta luego!