Learning a Language from Scratch

Learning Spanish was something that I have always wanted to do. I figured that this was the time to do it; sink or swim.

I chose to attend Ixchel Spanish School in Antigua due to its flexibility, activity options and course instruction. Having a one-on-one teacher for five hours a day for an entire week seemed like the way to go. My program could be specialized and include medical terminology which would later assist me in my volunteer placement in Honduras where I would know over 600 words.

On my first day of classes I was kindly greeted by my teacher Ana on the roof of the school.
The roof was set up with several tables where other students and teachers were already busy at work. I greeted Ana with a casual “hola” and sat down.

We began by having her ask me a few casual questions; what was my name, how old was I, where was I from etc. I was able to answer two of three; not bad for my first semi-conversation in Spanish.
As we progressed into the lesson we studied topics such as fruits and vegetables, animals, numbers, months and days and basic verbs. I found it very difficult trying to understand what she was saying. All of the instruction was in Spanish. Hand gestures and pointing definitely helped but I still found it difficult.
As the lesson ended I said “hasta luego” and waved to my teacher. On the way home I felt exhausted. It was difficult to sit and study a language for five hours and then go home and study more; how was I going to get through the next week?

As the week progressed things got much easier. I was able to communicate what I wanted a lot better and had less difficulty explaining things. If I didn’t know the word for something I would either look it up in the dictionary or use another word to replace it. Over the course of the week I studied professions, foods, clothing, parts of the body, adjectives, house words and of course verbs.

I was able to get through all of the rules for speaking in the present and future tense in just one week. It was amazing how much I could retain in such a short time. Although I learned quite a lot I still had a lot to learn. The guidance and patience of my teacher, Ana really allowed me to embrace the language at a speed that was comfortable to me. If it were not for her I would still be using hand gestures and body language to communicate everything.