Roadblocks

Learning a foreign language in the United States is like riding a bike with training wheels. In my case, I rocked a tricycle for about ten years. I'd go to class at my tiny all-girls' school, learn and recite grammar rules, and then innocently skip off to my next class, letting Spanish words escape my mind as I walked.

To put it mildly, those ten years of classes were incredibly deceiving. When I arrived in Spain, it was like someone took off my training wheels without warning and let me go (Still haven't forgotten that day, Dad). I thought I already knew how to ride a bike! I was coasting with the best of them!

Without those two extra wheels, I'm flat-out struggling. I'm forgetting words that I've known for years, mixing up verb tenses, butchering subject-verb agreements... It makes me wonder how I ever did well in my Spanish classes at Cal.

In my current state, I'm alternating between frustration and hope. Maybe I can get through a long sentence without stumbling or pausing to think. Or maybe I should have worked harder back in my college classes instead of taking advantage of the fact that my professors did not really care much about grammar or correct phraseology. This mental war with myself is exhausting, but I need to keep pushing through so I can get to the next stage of learning.

The light at the end of the tunnel: The more times I wipe the dirt off my scraped knees, the more I ignore the fear of falling, the closer I get to being able to ride a two-wheeler.