¡Progreso! (Progress)

I had the most excellent meet-up the other day! I’m so excited about it.

Several weeks ago, I had posted a question on the Palmer City Buzz Facebook group, asking if there was anybody who spoke Spanish who would be will willing to meet with me once a week for lunch (my treat) and tutor me in Spanish. I got a lot of replies, mostly from people who had suggestions on aps to use and/or websites to go to. One girl did volunteer, and I think she’s going to help me a lot in my endeavor to learn a foreign language, but we have to wait until she gets home from College this spring.

The best thing to come out of that post, however, was the creation of the Conversational Spanish Meet-up group! Which is basically just a group of people who want to practice their Spanish together. We meet once a month at The Black Birch Bookstore in Wasilla, and basically just chat with each other.

Our first meeting was a little awkward at first. There were four of us, and we really didn’t know what to do. So, since I am the one who put the whole thing together, I just started out by telling them WHY I did it, and what I wanted to gain from it. Then each of the others told their story about why they were there and what they needed to get. That got the ball rolling, and from there we just kept going.

One of the ladies had her three children with her. She told us that the kids were enrolled in a Spanish Immersion school, and she was just trying to keep up with them. Two of the kids spent their time browsing the bookstore and playing with toys they had brought with them. Her oldest son, however, actually sat with us at the table and participated in our group discussions. His name is Jackson, and he was awesome. I love that kid! If I were to have a son, I’d want him to be exactly like Jackson. He was very respectful and polite, and yet confident enough to not only answer questions in full sentences, but to even ask his own questions and contribute to the conversation. And he was only 13 years old! At the end of our meeting, he said that he had fun and wanted to be a part of the group from now on. Go Jackson!

Another lady told us that she had recently taken a DNA test and found out that she was 100% Spanish. Apparently, she had been adopted and had not known that about herself. She felt the need to connect with her roots by learning her native tongue.

The third person in our group was a Sophomore in high school who was teaching herself to speak Spanish (she already knew how to Sign fluently). She was painfully shy and barely spoke above a whisper, but by the end of our meeting she warmed up enough to even ask some questions.

And then, of course, there’s me – struggling to learn a new language so I can go meet up with my friend Marina down in Argentina.

Conversational Spanish

In preparation for my trip to Argentina this fall, I looked in to getting some Spanish Lessons. I eventually found an on-line school called Varsity Tutors who offer Conversational Spanish. I called them and found that it cost $269.00 for what I thought was an hour each week for a year; each lesson is one-on-one with your tutor via their education platform on-line.

Sign me up!

Except that, now that I’m two classes in, I find out that it’s actually $269.00 each MONTH! That makes it over $3,200.00 and I simply can’t afford that.

I’m really bummed. I was having fun with it and just knew that it would work for me. My tutor was a black man who was born in New York by parents who had immigrated from Ghana. He had spent 2-4 years in Korea where he met his wife and moved to her homeland where they now live in the Philippines with their son.

I bought the textbook my tutor had recommended for class, and still have that. I can assign myself homework each week, eventually making my way through the entire book. And – since I own it, I can repeat it as often as necessary to make sure it sticks around in my head. I also bought a set of flash cards (201 Spanish Words and 201 Spanish Phrases) so I can practice with those on our Weekend Get-Aways. Bryan might be persuaded to quiz me with them each night.

I also reached out on Facebook and found a young girl right here in Palmer who is willing to meet with me for lunch once a month to help with any difficulties I may encounter. This will be invaluable, no doubt – but won’t happen until spring when she gets home from college.

In the meantime, I also found a group of people who speak Spanish and want to get together once a month just to keep practicing together. To that end, I set up a Meet-and-Greet at the Black Birch Bookstore in Wasilla this Saturday at 1:00. There’s no agenda or any kind of requirements to attend other than that you speak the language. I’m hoping the group will meet every month, either there at the bookstore or somewhere else if need be.

So, While it’s not as great as I thought it would be – I still have hopes that by the time I find myself down at the opposite end of the world, I just might be able to actually speak to a few people.