One, Two.........Tres

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I turned up in Costa Rica, three months ago, knowing almost no Spanish. I did it at school but I haven't done anything at all in any language other than English for eleven years, so my thoughts that I would turn up and start talking like a tico were always going to be on the optimistic side. (A tico/tica is a nickname for a Costa Rican man or woman. Initially I thought it was like calling an Irish person "Paddy" but it turns out it's what they like to be called.) However, after three months of lessons with a very good teacher, working with Spanish speaking adults and kids and generally just doing normal stuff like going to the supermarket or talking to people on the bus, I have learnt more than I ever could have imagined.

My reading and listening are, as you would expect, a lot better than my speaking and I still get a look of extreme constipation on my face when I'm trying to mentally conjugate something into the past perfect tense but overall it's gone quite well.

The general opinion before I came here seemed to be that the best way to learn language was basically to drop yourself in a country where they don't speak English and just start trying, and I can't argue with that. On my part there were some totally unrealistic expectations of fluency harking back to the Simpson's episode where Bart goes on an exchange to France but when you are totally enveloped by a language you do find a way of getting by. Essentially because the alternative is just not to speak for three months. In terms of conversations I am still far from an ideal companion. I can listen and get the gist of most things, but when it comes to responding (a crucial part of most conversations) there are usually several long pauses, although I generally get there in the end. Apart from the time I didn't realise the verb meaning 'to catch' also means 'to have sex with' - I think I topped the awkward silence chart with that one - although frankly any language where those two things are so easily mixed up probably needs to shoulder some of the blame too I think.

One of my plans to learn a bit more was to watch films that I had already seen in English, on tele here with Spanish dubbing and hope that some of the words would just make their way into my head. I tried Harry Potter, Dennis the Menace, and Speed 2 amongst others and while I couldn't exactly declare it a roaring success, it did give me the chance to watch Rocky 6 with a 75 year old Grandma who looked like she was going to have a breakdown when he lost the last fight.

One of the big problems I have found is that everyone here speaks to bloody fast. I know that you always think that everyone speaking a different language talks really quickly and that people who don't speak English probably think that we speak dead quickly too, but that's bollocks - Spanish speaking people do just talk incredibly quickly. I have spent three months pretending I'm hard of hearing so I can get everyone to repeat everything they say to give me a little bit more time to work it out. Initially my thought process was to listen to the speedy mess that comes out of their mouths, work out what they said in Spanish (I'm very aware incidently that it seems somewhat arrogant to be criticising the way Spanish speaking people speak Spanish) work out the Spanish words I understood, internally translate them into English, work out my response in English, internally translate it into Spanish, then say it. As you can imagine, this process doesn't lend itself to any kind of conversation.

Recently, however, I have started to think in Spanish and now the internal translation isn't usually necessary, and when it is, it doesn't take anything like as long. The amount of awkward pauses has dropped significantly too which can only be a good thing, and a couple of weeks ago my football conversation with the lady in the Grocery store was something of a hit, even if I do say so myself.

The hardest thing, and I daresay this goes for learning any language, is stopping yourself from thinking what everything is in English first. Largely because not everything translates easily and the sentence structure is very different at times, but probably more importantly, working it out in English first stops you from thinking in Spanish and whilst that may be awkward at first, it's probably the most important thing to do if you want to stop making an idiot of yourself. Although learning the difference between catching someone and having sex with them is probably up there too.

Pura Vida.

Dave



Epilogue - That is just about that then. Three months is done and while there will probably be one more of these in the next week or so about the company I have been here with (Maximo Nivel - don't use them) it's all over bar the shouting I think.

Don't panic though, China next, in a couple of months. So we can all regroup here and start again at the end of February........if spared.

Thanks for your company.

Dave

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