Back to Spanish Class

26 Jun 2023 Leave a comment

by Dr. Tricia Wolanin in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

“Change your language and you change your thoughts.”
Karl Albrecht

            Last week I enrolled in a month long intensive Spanish course.  Although I have officially moved here nearly six months ago, I have put this off.  While in Paris last year, I took three months of French, and it made me cringe.  I hated starting from scratch, pronouncing everything all wrong, and be corrected constantly.  I didn’t think I would need Spanish here, but I have recognized and accepted that my Spanish was more of a tourist Spanish.   Additionally, Andalucians seem to sometimes speak a different language, with shortening the words or have nicknames for things that did not make sense.  Who knew that mala leche (which is translated to bad milk) equates with having a day where you are pissed off and angry?  If I wanted to improve, it required an intensive.  To commit to this was to commit to a part time job, twenty hours a week, Monday through Friday for four weeks.  But now I could do it.

            And I was pleasantly surprised. 

            It was actually somewhat enjoyable.  I had taken Spanish class in high school, college, and did an immersion in graduate school.  As we went around the room, verbalizing our background with Espanol, I realized it has been over twenty years since I had taken Spanish (Duolingo doesn’t count).  I could have compassion for myself with forgetting some things along the way. 

In the classroom, sat next to me a 14 year old Bosnian girl, living in Sweden. She showed me texts from her boyfriend and teacher, gossiping about her life as if we knew each other for years.  She guessed me to be in my 20s, when I shared I was in 40s, she was stunned. And I was flattered.  The class size generally stayed around 8 people, from other countries such as Morocco, Netherlands, England, and Italy.  Although we were collectively learning Spanish, we were learning about each other.  Our conversational skills were put to the test as we shared our background information, occupation, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and family dynamics.  “Me llamo Tricia.  Me gusta caminar con mi amigo.  Soy americana, pero ahora vivo en Malaga por seis meses…”  This was repeated throughout the week, because with four hour long sessions, the teachers rotated in and out.  We could practice hearing different accents, dialects, and experience various teaching styles. 

            But all were pleasant.  Yes we were corrected at times, but it was with encouragement.  For some reason, my experience with learning the French language is it was tiresome and draining, it probably didn’t help that we wore masks for most of the sessions.  I recall practicing my Spanish with a local here several months ago, who was training to be a language teacher.  He laughed when I pronounced various words, and therefore it shut me down.  Why open oneself to ridicule in the hopes of improving?  A warm encouraging environment is so necessary to offer padding to those learning something new.  If you fall, it’s not so bad.  You are then willing to try again, criticism didn’t knock you down.  At least for me, this is my preferred learning style.  

            And so I am ready to enter week 2 of classes, with more energy, less cringe, and curiosity of what will be revealed next.   As I write this, I am full of appreciation for the teachers out there who have the kind patience in working with their students, and for all students out their who have self-compassion as they learn something new.

Oh La La

25 Mar 2022 Leave a comment

by Dr. Tricia Wolanin in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

While taking a stroll in a local Parisian park, a recent expat said to me, “The French really like saying Oh La La.”  Prior to living in Paris, when I heard the phrase “Oh La La”, I thought it simply would be the phrase that would come out of Miss Piggy’s mouth from The Muppets when she saw Kermit.  For me, it meant “Wow”, “Sexy”, or “I love this.”  But it’s multidimensional.  I heard the phrase three times this week, used in different contexts.

1-Frustration:

I was in the line of a marche (market).  I had several items, the woman behind me had one item, and the old man in front of me pulled out his entire rollie of products to be scanned.  The woman behind me sighed “Oh La La,” as he emptied the entire contents of 20 plus products to the cash register.  She did not want to wait and was frustrated there was only one cashier that day.  

2-Disappointment:

Earlier in French class this week, we each had to read our answers to various homework questions.  When one person was asked to read the number 85, she could not recall how to say this.  The teacher breathed out, “Oh La La”, disappointed that we were already at the end of 8 weeks of French and a simple number could not be read.  For those, counting it’s pronounced “quatre-vingt-cinq.”  

3-Adoration:

My nearly 15 year old English Bulldog loves going to the park, but does not seem to have the energy or motivation to walk two long blocks to our destination.  Therefore, I transport him in a stroller.  Upon our return from Champs de Mars, a man looked at the tired but content Puzo, and smiled saying “Oh La La”.  I could sense in the hint of “how precious.”

I am sure there are many other ways to use this phrase.  It’s a catch all like, “Oh my gosh”, “Ay ya ya”, “Geez Louise.”  This is one phrase that seems stereotypical, but I am going to try to embed into my vocabulary.  Perhaps you will catch me next time saying “Oh la la,” but hopefully in a complimentary way. 

Positif ou Négatif

16 Mar 2022 Leave a comment

by Dr. Tricia Wolanin in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

The other day in French class we were learning various adjectives for emotions or character traits: triste, agreable, serieux, desagreable.  We had to quantify if these words were positive or negative.  We got to a word “orgueilleux,” which according to google means “proud.”  A classmate noted, “c’est positif.”  The teacher disagreed, and the student looked at the class, shrugged his shoulders and said “depends.”  The teacher then shared that it means more than proud, it means “arrogant.”  This is pride discussed in the way Jane Austen would back in the day.  So the class agreed, “c’est negatif.”  

It’s interesting as a psychologist, to sit in a classroom and label emotions as “bad or good.”  This is what we are trying to get away from in society, as all emotions should be welcome.  There’s a time and place for sadness, anger, joy, and seriousness.  But I understand, we are doing this exercise, solely as a learning experiment.  The images shown to describe the emotions were the universal language of emojis. 

 

When you are in a beginners language class, generally there is no room for debate or philosophical discussion.  It’s basically a time for memorization, particularly if the words are positif or negatif, or feminin ou masculin.