Back to Basics

Question: how is it that I am a college student, but feel like a kindergartner?
The answer: this semester, I'm taking Spanish one.

Spanish one is the covers the most basic Spanish, meeting someone for the first time and basic vocabulary you would use in everyday situations.  The description of the class read, "little or no Spanish required."  I took my two years of language in high school, but I wanted to start small in college.  I'm glad I did; this class has been stupendous in better cementing everything I learned in high school.  The emphasis on class participation in this class makes speaking the language so much easier.

I'm learning a lot, but taking this basic Spanish class makes me feel like I'm back in kindergarten.  For example, we just finished learning the colors and numbers and, yes, even the alphabet.  We also learned how to tell time in Spanish by using those little cardboard clocks you probably used when you first learned to tell time.  In class, all of the students (me included) struggle with writing out simple sentences on the board, or distinguishing between the pronouns.  It is the weirdest feeling to essentially relearn all of these things.  It is basically like experiencing kindergarten all over again.  On one hand, it's really fun, but on the other hand, it makes me feel pretty dim when I'm struggling to remember the order the days of the week go in: "lunes, martes, miércoles...uhhmmm...viernes?...noooo...jueves!" 

The class slowly made its way up to maybe second grade when we started doing two digit math problems in Spanish.  Now we've graduated to maybe fourth or fifth grade.  We are learning how to conjugate verbs and have subject verb agreement.  Today we also learned how to count up into the hundred thousands, which was actually quite a challenge!  Smarter than a fifth grader?  I don't think so.  Maybe sitting in on a Spanish kindergarten class would be a good way to learn Spanish.  I bet I could learn a lot from those little five-year-olds!