Learning Spanish

My husband and I started a Spanish class this week. Oh, you're not fooling me! I know what you're thinking... "Of all the fun things they could possibly have chosen to do, why on earth would they choose to take Spanish classes?" Tell me I'm wrong!

We've found ourselves feeling awkward and more than a little uncomfortable in Spanish social settings because we can't understand a word people are saying! It's not that they never speak English, because they do, which is incredibly generous on their part. It's just that when they're speaking to one another, they totally fall into their native Spanish, which is completely understandable. So what are they saying? I haven't a clue and that's tough for someone like me. I need to know what's being said. What if they're talkin' smack about me? I'd wanna know, wouldn't you?

Seriously, I want to be able to follow conversations better and have the ability to converse with the Spanish in their native tongue. After all, we are in their country. I realize I'm not going to become fluent anytime soon, but if I could just carry on a simple conversation, I'd feel on top of the world.

There are only three students in our class... a Navy guy, my husband and me. We're in class approximately three and a half hours per day, five days per week for six weeks. Our instructor is very warm and friendly, and quite possibly the most patient person on the planet. Can you imagine teaching Spanish to three knuckleheads who really don't know which end is up? She's awesome!

As a result of the small, intimate number of students in this class, there's a lot of interaction between each of us and the instructor, which in turn helps us learn quicker, or at least I'd like to think so. I have to pay very close attention because the pace at which our class moves really keeps me on my toes. Instruction is probably 95% Spanish, which of course means our teacher speaks to us in English only 5% of the time. I never would have dreamed I could comprehend anything in a setting such as this, but it's actually starting to click. I'm learning!

What drives me crazy about Spanish is that most words have a feminine and masculine quality/connotation assigned to them. Why? Why? Why? And guess what? There are "exceptions to the rule" in Spanish, just like in English. And here I'd been thinking Spanish made more sense because it had steadfast, cut and dried rules. Um... no, that's not always the case.

And then there are the verb conjugations... ¡El cielo, me ayuda! (Translation = "Heaven, help me!") I wake in the middle of the night conjugating verbs. I was commenting about this very thing to the language school director and he said that was good because it meant my brain was thinking as I was sleeping, putting things in my "Spanish memory bank." That's great... really, really great... but I wish my brain would work a little more silently and allow me to rest at the same time.