learn fluent spanish

Okay, I’m going to start posting three new words from each chunk of reading I do. I’m reading a short story by Juan Rulfo – painfully but steadily.

From yesterday:

huizaches – [desert] shrubs of the acacia species
carabina – rifle
cerros – hills

Today I brought a Neruda book, a dictionary, and a little Spanish Lit. packet into my temp job. I’m going to read a bunch, write down the vocabulary I don’t know, then turn the vocabulary into pictorial flash cards later on. It’s a start!

I can decipher writing pretty well with a dictionary, I can get the gist of what folks around me are saying, my accent’s decent, I can explain myself, and I’ve even had dreams in Spanish. But I want to be comfortable. I want to be able to read most things without a dictionary, understand almost exactly what folks around me are saying, and explain myself clearly and easily.