One Month

One month has passed already since I arrived. Time seems to have flown by very quickly. I'm feeling pretty comfortable - not totally, but better than the week of culture shock I experienced.

On Wednesday I had a private lesson with my tango teacher Marcelo. I had my Italian class in the morning. When I first saw Marcelo, we chatted a bit, I think about my Italian class or what I had been doing since I last saw him. He told me he thought my Spanish was improving. I thought it was interesting that he said that. I think it is improving too, at least it is becoming more fluent. Having more opportunities to practice really helps me. I have to say things beyond things you say when you first meet someone, or asking for things in a store. Telling stories and having conversations with people requires some advanced grammar and vocabulary, and putting myself into situations where I need that helps me to put into practice some of the things I've studied in my advanced level classes. It's all starting to make sense now and I'm feeling more comfortable using things like the subjunctive and conditional.

What I found interesting though was that I felt my tango had improved. Even simple things like walking, which Marcelo has me do as a warm up, felt more comfortable for me. I felt like I had better balance, like my walk was more confident and like I was walking in time with the music better. When I danced with Marcelo, I was leading, and I felt like my lead was strong and clear. Marcelo didn't say anything about any of that, but even so, I noticed an improvement and I felt good about it.

Learning is interesting for me, but I think it is important for us to take time to recognize the progress we are making. Sometimes we might feel like we are not improving at all and that can be frustrating. But when we feel our improvement, whether or not someone tells us they see it, I think it can encourage us to keep trying, even though things might be difficult.

For me feeling like I am improving as a tango dancer and as a Spanish speaker encourages me to keep going out and looking for opportunities to practice.