Halleluja!!! We Finished Spanish Classes

Rarely have I been so glad that something was over!

What an ordeal!

Each gringo that I talked to at the school said the same things: I am totally confused, I hit the wall every class, some just shake their head and even lack the English to complain, confusion is pervasive.

I do believe that learning a second language at this stage of life is a herculean effort...so prohibitive that the vast majority quit.

(If you are now disgusted and want to stop reading, I understand, but I encourage you to read on.)

We are learning a language in a school, an intellectual environment. This is probably the only way to "teach" Spanish. But it is artificial and engages the wrong parts of the brain.

We learn our first language as small children TOTALLY as a verbal, mimic style endeavor. No studying, no thinking, no understanding.

To the schools credit, they did everything in their power to avoid "studying." They spoke 99% Spanish and tried to give us the word meanings with pantomime, other Spanish words and pictures.

They used pictures and asked us to describe them with only Spanish. They used games. They used conversation. All a great effort to avoid "thinking."

Ah, but we do have powerful minds! Thinking just can't be avoided.

So, this process is PAINFUL to the max.

At the end of our last class, la professora gave us a review test. Neither Yella nor I could answer 20% of the questions, at least half of the test we could have aced when we started. We have regressed, lost what we had, feeble as it was.

I was defeated.

When I filled out the evaluation form, I gave the school and la professora excellent scores, then I gave myself a poor score.

I figured that I need another 200 to 300 hours of instruction to converse at a 5 or 6 year old level.

Disheartening...

Now the interesting part.

I picked up our gardener this morning and automatically, without any intention to do so, started to talk to him in Spanish. Not good Spanish or even minimally acceptable Spanish BUT Spanish.

Holy Shit!

I don't know what to say. This baffles me.

Well, I have been wrong about so many things in the past, could it be possible that I am wrong about learning Spanish?

Naw!