July 4, 2012
Today is Independence Day back at home and instead of
celebrating with the Red, White and Blue, I am in my first day of Catalan
classes. As I walk in, I am completely
lost. I still don’t even have the basic
skills to ask where my classroom is and it is a rule of every administrator in
the language center to not speak Spanish with the students. Ergo, I am thrilled to find a woman who took
pity on my, asked if I was looking for the initial class, and kindly direct me
to my classroom when I nodded affirmatively.
The great news about Catalan is that I already understand the majority
of it when it is spoken to me or when I see it on signs throughout the
city. The bad news is that I’m pretty
much the worst Catalan speaker ever at the moment. During my initial session, my teacher kindly
tells me that I speak great French and Spanish (most of the words in Catalan
are very similar either to French or Spanish and thus, I get quite confused
when I open my mouth to speak), but that I don’t speak Catalan and refers me to
some TV channels to practice my accent.
I leave feeling a bit discouraged; this is first time in nearly three
years that I have attempted to learn a new language completely from scratch and
it’s taking some getting used to.
Luckily, the courses are free through the government for new
residents and there is a website with all sorts of activities on it. I’m practicing a bit more every day and am
finding that it’s becoming easier and easier with each passing day. This is a good thing since EVERYTHING here in
Barcelona is written in Catalan; this includes the fruits and vegetables at the
grocery store. I never really know what
I’m buying; I just pick something and hope for the best =)
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