Learn Spanish

I made a decent start! I had the true test a few days ago in Costa Rica when I actually held a comprehensible conversation with a native speaker who knows no English. I also managed to ask questions and understand the answers regarding buying tickets for the car ferry to the Nicoya peninsula and I could ask for directions when we got lost. All in all, a very good time and I feel like I got more out of the trip because I was able to communicate.

I need to learn more of those darn verbs before next year!

I am heading off to Costa Rica next week with my new Spanish vocabulary. I still feel very rough with verbs, but I think my listening and reading comprehension has gone way up. With luck, I’ll know enough to make myself understood. It gets very frustrating trying to communicate with random nouns and hand gestures.

This was a very demanding and stressful semester, but I’m still glad I added a Spanish class on top of everything else. Until we got into the complex verb tenses, it was my “fun” class.

My Spanish class is progressing nicely and I’m starting to learn how to put together basic sentences. We’ll see how much I know by December. I’ve started tentatively planning my trip to Costa Rica in January. I only get six days this year because the spring semester starts so early. I’m a little bummed but it’s still going to be worth it. Nicaragua and Panama will have to wait two years until I’m out of school though. Driving anywhere down there takes the better part of a day, so I’d rather pick one place or maybe two and settle in to relax and enjoy myself. The hard part is deciding where to go this time.

I’m REALLY looking forward to having a bigger vocabulary this year. It’s a beautiful country and I’ll get even more out of my trip if I can communicate and learn some new things.

As if I didn’t have enough to do this fall, I’ve added Spanish 1 to my class load. I’m hoping to visit Costa Rica again this January and may make it to Nicaragua. If we get out of the cities, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find someone who speaks English. It will be three hours of class time per week so it’s not too bad, other than the additional studying I’ll need to do.

I’m really excited about this. I’m relatively fluent in French and I’d love to add a third language to my arsenal. Travel is so much more fun when you can speak with the locals.