Tuesday, February 8, 2011

High school spanish

When I took Spanish in high school, I admittedly was not a good student, I remember conjugating verbs could be tricky. Spanish is definitely harder than English in that respect BUT I already knew when a verb needed to be conjugated so it was just learning the proper way to handle that verb.

I am actually pretty good at picking up languages. Immersion being my method of choice, I learned sign-language good enough in two semesters that deaf people I met didn't know I was actually hearing. I hung out with them and had a great time. In Romania, I had a deep internal draw to try and learn as much of the language as possible so that I could communicate with people. Even though we were only there one week. I know how to order my favorite dish at a Vietnamese restaraunt here in town using you guessed it Vietnamese. My boss, who is Vietnamese thinks it is great. I do wish I was fluent enough in any language to actually claim it on a resume but I've yet to take that step. As with most things I pick them up quickly, yet I know how difficult it is to learn a new skill and speaking is much easier than writing or reading.

I wish I knew better how learning language worked. Just to know how it worked. I learned the basics of it when I took Child Development while working on my teaching certificate, but that was all just classroom learning of the theories. Now I can observe it every day and it is fascinating.

Like all my posts I typically start them days if not weeks in advance and then don't finish them usually because I think they are stupid. However, this is one thought in my head that is daily recurring. How did my little girl learn to conjugate verbs. I don't know when exactly this happened; I started this post two weeks ago but sometime over the last month she has started adding, "ing and ed" to verbs. Unlike my attempts in high school, where I knew I had to change the verb for different tenses. All I needed to do is figure out which tense. She learned the rule AND the tense and correctly applies it to every regular verb. She does still say, "I falled" or "I felled." My favorite thing she says is, "I'm running" and the word patience which is not the same topic.

Since I love learning and love learning new skills. I'm sure I'll be in awe the rest of my life as she learns new things. I am sure I'll be jealous at how quickly she learns them and how much opportunity she has to learn them. I just think it is amazing how people learn language, I did in college and I especially do now.

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