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runswithscissors


Tuesday, September 01, 2009

I've been through big honking pooploads of language classes since arriving in Madrid nine years ago. Far, far more than it ever occurred to me I'd find myself wading through, both intensive studies (4 hours daily) and evening classes (1-1/2 or 2 hours, 2-3 nights a week). At four different schools, each one providing a distinctly different experience.

(Why so many? I wanted to learn the language and knew I wouldn't without the structure, information and push that classes provide. Did it add up to a pile o' shekels? Yes, and I consider it cash well tossed about. I wouldn't speak Spanish as decently as I do without all that classwork and class time. I wouldn't have met a lot of great and/or interesting people without all that. And I sure as hell would not have passed, much less signed up to take, the DELE exam.

I'm not sure when it was that I decided that learning to speak some French would be a good thing. Maybe after passing through Paris and Montreal a few times. Maybe after hearing how amazing French sounds when spoken by representatives of the female gender. Maybe after spending a weekend in a place where almost no one spoke either of the two languages I can babble. Somewhere in there. I'd love to be versed in a bunch of languages, and maybe if I'd discovered that desire early on I might now have that capability. My life might have taken a whole different direction, getting international a whole lot earlier than it did. 'Cause something I've discovered during the last few years is that multilingual people are heroes to me. Not that I want to be a hero. More like I want to be able to spend more time around women who sound wildly sensuous, and I want to understand what the hell they're saying.

So. Classes.

When I was here (meaning Montreal) in June, I posted a Craig's List ad, trawling for people to hang with, to explore the city with (platonic only, thank you very much). One of the individuals who responded was a woman who was at that time doing intensive French classes at a local language school. I checked out their webpage, it seemed all right. The woman liked the classes, and in researching other schools, none of them looked to have any advantages over this one. When I returned to the city three weeks ago, I hopped the Metro, found the place, signed myself up.

Total beginners -- like me -- can only start classes on the very first day of one of the school's four-week sessions. Which meant, in my case, Monday of last week. The day arrived, I crawled out of bed real damn early, was at the school by 8:30 -- because that first day they force everyone to go through placement testing. Didn't matter that I let them know I had no experience in French, couldn't speak it, that the test would be one big freakin' waste of time. Everyone has to do it.

Did it, answering maybe three out of nearly forty questions. Handed it in. Waited, along with thirty or more others wanting to begin classes but being forced to sit around. Once the tests had been collected and looked through, they came and dragged us out one by one. Because we all had to go through an oral exam. Didn't matter that I assured them I had no experience with French, couldn't speak it, blah-de blah-de. They sat me down with a 30ish architect from Turkey who also couldn't speak it, we both told the nice woman who talked to us in French that we didn't know what she was saying, couldn't answer her questions. She eventually gave in and switched to English. Which is when we found out there would be no classes on that first day of classes. We'd have to go away for a couple of hours, entertain ourselves, then come back for a group Q&A with the director of the school and a walking tour. All of that could have been taken care of with printed material.

Which meant: Day 1 of classes = a wash.

[continued in next entry]


Espaņa, te echo de menos

rws 6:45 PM [+]
Comments:
So, now do you speak Spanish with that Catalonia lisp?
# posted by Blogger mad : 2:52 PM
 
The sound you mean is part of Castillan (Castellano) Spanish, and yep, I do. For some reason, it's always sounded and felt more natural to me than, say, the Mexican version. Go figure.
# posted by Blogger rws : 4:35 PM
 
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BLATHERINGS

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August 2009
September 2009

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MORE FOCUSED BLATHERINGS


Travels:
London '01
Pamplona
Italy '03
U.K. '03
Sevilla
Casablanca
Stoke-on-Trent
Barcelona
Québec/Ottawa
Boston/Lisbon/Madrid
Italy '04
Montréal
La Sierra

Events:
Madrid -- arrival
9/11
Emergency Room I
Holidays 2001
Holidays 2002
Holidays 2003
Holidays 2004
Holidays 2005
A neighbor's passing
Madrid -- March 11 bombings
  and aftermath
Emergency Room II
Israeli friend/Madrid Marathon
Madrid -- Royal Wedding
The DELE exam

GONE, a novel:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10

THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF
JOE ROCCO, a novella:
-- Part 1
-- Part 2
-- Part 3

BURBANK SHRUGGED,
a screenplay:
-- Part 1
-- Part 2
-- Part 3
-- Part 4

Short stories:
Murphy's Wife
Another Autumn
La Queja de Una
  Hermanastra Muy Conocida

Autobiography
-- Personal History
-- Hormones On Parade
-- Accidents, Random Mishaps,
    Personal Problems

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


OTHER SOURCES OF WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT

People/Weblogs:
dooce
foxvox
fudge it
fear not
rebekka
bookslut
802online
idle words
madhaiku
wockerjabby
grow-a-brain
rebel market
letting me be
out and about
kung fu grippe
fanatical apathy
baghdad burning
wfuv's music blog
kexp's music blog
mimi smartypants
between the miles
just a hippie gypsy
the impossible cool
tomato can brushes
vermont homestead
sugar mountain farm

Good Clean Fun:
gizmodo
futurismic
postsecret
dave barry
human clock
mcsweeney's
spaceweather
book-a-minute
internet archive
self-portrait day
my cat hates you
out of context quotes
surrealist compliment
  generator
strindberg and helium

Makin' Musical Whoopee:
last fm
stereo8
pandora
soma fm

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ABOUT RWS/CONTACT





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