I've been learning Spanish. No, I'm not taking a community college class. I've been learning along with Bianca (who fortunately has Spanish once a week in her first-grade class). I figured, why not? Now maybe I can understand what the cleaning ladies are saying while they're cleaning and ensure it's not something bad about me or the cleanliness of my house. Plus, I need to help Bianca study anyway.
But there's one problem. All I see is a list of words in Bianca's homework folder every Monday. I quiz her from a sheet of paper where I'm destroying these words with bad pronounciation (and ruining Bianca's pronunciation in the process). I spent the greater part of the evening during our Christmas in Dallas asking my brother-in-law how to pronounce colors, months, body parts--you get the picture--in Spanish. I was embarressed to find out I'd been butchering the word nariz (nose) from not putting the emphasis in the correct place. It's amazing the difference that makes. It's like a totally different word.
It reminds me of the English word candelabra, which I'd butchered in college. The problem? I read. I read a lot of books (I'd read the word often). Yes, I knew what it was, but I'd never heard anyone pronounce the word. And having taken grammar classes in college, I knew that in the English language the emphasis is usually put on the third to last syllable. I was pronouncing it can-DEL-abra, instead of candel-A-bra. Kind of embaressing, really, when the truth came out. Which proves my next point--I think you can learn a lot, A LOT, from books, but unless you have smart people around you, talking to them about what you're learning, I think something will always be missing. I'm glad my husband's cerebral and talks to me a lot, even about grammar (as long as he's not making me feel stupid for not knowing it in the first place--not the grammar, I'll trump him anytime on that--but most other things, especially history).
Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it. As we were driving back through Dallas and stopped for gas in Amarillo, I laughed at the way we Americans were pronouncing the word yellow (amarillo) in our language. Amarillo, Texas--it sounds so blah. The Spanish way is definitely better, which is why I practiced my pronounciation all the way through the city. Amarillo. Amarillo. It's Yellow, Texas to me now.
