fleeing the country

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Holy crap. I leave tomorrow.

I've been planning and talking about my trip for 6 months now, and in one day I’m fleeing the country for an undetermined amount of time. If what I’ve heard from people over and over again is correct, immersion is the key to learning any language relatively quickly and making it stick.

Immerse me.

I’m going to Costa Rica (the Latin American country of choice for so many gringos looking to hablar espanol*) to attend a school called the Costa Rican Language Academy, or CRLA (www.spanishandmore.com), located in the capital city of San Jose (that “e” should have an accent on it, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do that on my Macbook yet). I chose the 4 days a week/5 hours a day package so I would have three-day weekends to explore the rest of the country. Apparently, no one speaks English at the school (oh, they CAN speak it, but they choose not to), and I will be living with a Costa Rican host family, so I will be speaking only Spanish at home, too. This school is just one of many in Costa Rica and other Latin American countries catering to people who want to learn a new language while being immersed in the culture. I chose to study in San Jose, rather than a beach town, so there would be no temptation to skip class and sunbathe instead.

I would say I’m an advanced beginner Spanish speaker. I can tell you my name, and ask for yours. I can tell you it’s wonderful to meet you. I can ask where the bathroom is, and where you’re from. I can even tell you it’s hot outside. I have dabbled in the preterit and the present progressive (oh yeah, baby…I can say I am GOING TO GO somewhere, and when I get back I can tell you I WENT). Having felt particularly motivated in the past two weeks, I even started to tackle things like “indirect object pronouns”. Because hey, if you think about it, it’s really important to know how to say “it” when you don’t know the name of anything. In conclusion, I can meet someone and make polite conversation for about 7 minutes before I digress to the eloquence of a 3-year-old, accompanied by a lot of pointing and extreme face making.

I have tried to learn more, I really have. I’m embarrassed to say I own about 25 books designed to “make learning Spanish easy and fun”, and I’ve read a lot of them (only about the first 10 pages). I took an adult education class a few years ago, and last year I even upgraded to a private tutor. Along the way I definitely increased my knowledge and learned new things, but I always forgot most of what I had learned since I wasn’t using it on a regular basis.

My plan is to do two months of language study at the school and then try to get a job or volunteer for a little while so I can really improve my language skills. This plan is completely subject to change once I get there and see what everything is really like as opposed to what all the guidebooks and websites say.

I’m keeping this blog for several reasons. First and foremost, I want to provide a first-hand account of learning a new language to anyone who might be curious about what that’s like. If you’re anything like me you have two types of friends: those who already speak another language fluently, and those who don’t and aren’t trying to learn. The friends who are already fluent started their language training early, probably in high school or earlier. They don’t remember learning the basics, or the awkward transition into fluency, and they can’t quite verbalize what that process was like. One thing I’ve heard from these friends repeatedly is, “One day it will just click. You will wake up and it will all make sense to you.” I really hope they’re right, and I honestly believe they are (they’re just conveniently forgetting all those insanely frustrating times before it does click, when you have no idea how to say what you need to say). Don’t fret: I will be recording all of those frustrating times right here.

The friends I have who aren’t trying to learn a language, many of them would really like to! But it can seem very daunting, time consuming, and futile when a full-time job and full-time life are in the way. I hope this blog will inspire busy people to make (even a little bit of) time to do something that makes them happy.

Me? I’m a woman in transition. I find myself at a crossroads of sorts, which is why this is a good time for to do something like this. I’m so happy to be able to dedicate the time to learning Spanish, since it’s something I’ve wanted to do for so long.

It may not feel good the entire time I AM doing it, so I’m going to savor this moment and come back to it when necessary (like every night for the first few weeks when I have no idea what my host family is talking about at dinner).

Adios, for now.

* “gringo/gringa” is a common term in costa rica. It’s cool, they don’t mean no harm by it.