4th August 2010
LANGUAGE
The things that I am finding difficult are the use of times e.g. tomorrow, today, and yesterday this is because of lack of vocabulary. I am also finding it hard to say this is, that is, these are, those are. My dictionary has been good for this, as it has a grammar section at the back. I also don’t know how to say I am going to brush my teeth for example. I have spent today going over Coffee Break Spanish to try to pick up sentences so I can have a conversation with people about the weather and daily routines. I was feeling car sick yesterday and was tired, which combined made me feel rather ill. I have been listening to Coffee Break Spanish so that if I feel this way again I will be able to explain myself clearer without the use of many fingers stuck between the dictionary pages. It is a horrible and frustrating feeling when you are not understood. I am finding that I can say words more than sentences. The sentences that I am using are very basic and the syntax often causes people to put their heads to one side with a ‘what is she saying look’ registered clearly on their faces. I do not know my verb tenses and it would have been a great help if I had known past and future tense before arriving. Antonia is a girl who is five years old. Yesterday she spent some time drawing pictures with me so we could understand one another. Today we were on the http://www.tudiscoverykids.com/ website. Antonia was trying to play the games but couldn’t read the instructions. I could read the instructions but could not understand what the meaning was behind it all. So, I read, and she did what it explained. We played hangmen and all sorts of other games. I now have 84 new words or expressions written down. This is a combination of Antonia and Ana helping me out. Lots of words and gestures are being used. Ana explained how to use the washing machine to me today. She was trying to explain wet and in the end got some water, wet her hand and put in on my face. I felt like Helen Keller – it was a good laugh.