Spanish

About two months ago we made the decision to hire me a private tutor instead of sending me to the University, to learn Spanish. It has been the best decision that we made! For about the same amount of money, I am able to receive one on one instruction. There have been MANY times where I've been SO glad that I am not in a class. Learning a language is hard work and having a private teacher has been a HUGE blessing.

Meet Lara. She is my Spanish teacher. Lara and her husband go to our church and are expecting their first baby. She is actually a Spanish linguist by profession. And I am SO thankful for her!! We get along great; she's very kind and nice. She is patient and doesn't mind repeating the same word a dozen times (literally) in each lesson. And she never makes fun of me and my mistakes. Ever.

Here we are during one of our sessions. She comes to my house for 2 hours a day, 4 days a week; Tuesday-Friday. The lessons are interesting and never boring. She is great at introducing new concepts and reviewing old ones. We use the computer and internet a lot. And she's always great about answering my questions. Often I'll ask her to help me differentiate between something, for example the difference between muy and mucho, and she will come the next day with a whole lesson and practice exercises just on that question. It's been SO helpful.

Another fun thing that we do is take field trips! We studied fruits and vegetables, very handy for my trips to the fruteria, or produce market, and then we took a trip to the market to reinforce what I'd studied. Going to the market was super helpful too; learning how to read and understand labels and packaging, etc. Here she is writing down more words for me to learn...

And here is a produce section of one of our local markets...

I have definitely made progress with Spanish. When we got here I really didn't know anything. Now I can understand about 1/2 a sermon and sometimes some of what Spaniards are saying when they talk. I can go into a store and ask questions-lately I've been able to interact more and more with the shopkeepers. At church I can go up to people and carry on semi conversations-chit chat. BUT I still have SO much to learn. You can pray that I would continue to make progress and retain what I learn and that I would not be overwhelmed by the language. I am thankful to the Lord for His grace and mercy in equipping me thus far and I know He will continue to be faithful.