A Good Week

This week was good. I felt relaxed and comfortable here and I'm feeling healthy again after having some problems. I also feel like I got over a bump in my road to becoming more fluent in Spanish.

I like speaking Spanish, but I am very aware of my mistakes. One of my first Spanish teachers was very strict. He always corrected me every time I made a mistake. I was not able to finish a sentence without him interrupting me. Then he would make me repeat the sentence again. It was very frustrating for me and I think made me really afraid to make mistakes.

I was trying to find opportunities here to speak Spanish, but there were other opportunities that I had that I didn't take advantage of. I have a friend here, Hernan, who is from Buenos Aires. He speaks English pretty well, so we mostly spoke English with each other. Once he told me that if I want to speak Spanish with him I need to remember how difficult it is for him to listen to me! He was criticizing my Spanish. He has said many things like that to me over the time I've known him. I finally decided to only speak English with him.

Then one day I met his friend who didn't speak English. We spoke Spanish and I think Hernan saw that my Spanish was not that bad. After that, he started speaking Spanish with me, but I felt shy and didn't want to speak.

This week I started taking lessons with a new teacher. I told my teacher that I really need practice just speaking, because I don't speak enough. So, for two hours we sat and had our lesson and I did most of the talking. It was really good for me. I felt more confident after and I also felt like something in my brain had changed!

Later that night, my friend Hernan came over for dinner and started speaking Spanish to me. I responded to him and noticed that I felt really comfortable. We had a nice conversation and I only made a few mistakes.

I think my Spanish is improving. I know I have learned many new words since I came here 3 months ago. But also, my willingness to speak Spanish more is also improving. I'm less afraid and more willing to take chances. I think that things like my conversation partners and my lessons are helping, but more than anything, letting go of my fear of making mistakes seems to be helping me the most.

Today I want to post a video of an electronic tango group that I like. They are called Gotan Project, and they play a new style of tango. This song is called Mi Confesion (My Confesion) and is a mixture of tango, electronic tango and hip hop. I like it alot.