Kaixo! eta zer moduz? Ni oso pozik nago!
Today is day 10 of the barnetegi experience. We have been learning in the classroom for a week and a half–and the study is very intense. My ability to understand other people has increased exponentially, but when it is time for me to talk, I feel tongue-tied.
I have a hard time expressing myself–I think that´s the hardest part for me. I have so much that I want to say to other people, but don´t know how to put into words. I can talk about simple things without difficulty, but when it comes to complex sentence structures I stumble through them.
In conversation, my biggest hang-up is vocabulary. I feel like I should tote my dictionary around because I have to ask about every other word. People start to talk and I hear a word that I don´t recognize and I get fixated on that word and miss the rest of what they are saying. Then we have to rewind the story, they repeat themselves, repeat. But this is normal, I am told, when learning a language. A good piece of advice someone gave to me was that when you are learning a language, you need to memorize words. The more the merrier. And until I came to Maizpide, I didn´t realize just how important that was.
(It´s funny, but sitting here writing in English is actually difficult right now. I am used to Euskera! I have forgotten how to spell some words in English, and have to consult the online dictionary from time to time. 🙂 But then I can´t write that well in Euskera either…Ai ama!!!)
Wow. there´s so much to tell, I don´t even know where to begin. Right now, I am going to go study. Maybe after exercising a little more Euskera, I will be inspired to write something here.