Last week, I got demoted in Spanish. The teacher spoke with me after class and told me she thought I’d be better off in Level 3 than Level 4, where I was having trouble holding my own, to put it mildly. Even though I knew she was right, and had asked the Spanish coordinator to go down a level before the class even started (to which he encouraged me to stay put, give it a week, and re-assess), it stung to be called out as the one out-of-her-depth kid holding up all the others. That’s not quite how my teacher put it – but in contrast to my Spanish, my English language inference skills are excellent, and that’s exactly what she meant.
Apart from my wounded pride, though, I’m happy to have made the switch. Level 3 feels much more appropriate to my aptitude, or lack thereof. And my new teacher is from Buenos Aires, which is awesome because a. falling in love with Argentina was my inspiration for picking up Spanish again (fifteen years after falling in love with Barcelona was my inspiration for attempting to learn Spanish the first time), and b. Argentine-accented Spanish is the most amazing-sounding thing on Earth and I want to be around it as much as possible (though I will never in a million years be able to replicate it).
In completely unrelated news, here are some interesting reads that I missed the chance to post last Friday:
The moral case for eliminating borders completely
I so wish I had gone to a dual-language public school. They are on the rise.
Six travel apps every solo female traveler should have
Studying the Pompeians’ lives, rather than their deaths
Can you imagine flying across the Atlantic for $150 round-trip? It may soon be possible…
36 hours in Buenos Aires (though my 36 hours would be a lot different than the Times’)
Have a good week!
[Photo: Francisco Martins]
talk foreign to me 
Ruth, you have to believe in yourself! When I started learning English, it was all book work. I had no native English speaker to listen to or to speak to, so I learned it by reading. When I had to speak in class, it felt to weird to roll the R, to reproduce H (which is a mute letter in my language), etc. Well, in the end I learned to speak English by *mocking* English speakers. I found out that that was when people were actually able to understand me! And about your chance as an English speaker to pick up the Argentine accent, I will give you a successful example: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheDustinLuke He is quite famous here in Buenos Aires! You could be next! ;D Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Isa! It does get easier with practice…