Learning the language

A lot of people have asked me if I'm worried about being immersed in the Spanish language when I get to Panama. Mostly, the answer is ''no." I took eight years of Spanish, and still have a strong grasp on grammar, construction, and vocabulary. Obviously I'm not as used to hearing the language, or speaking it, especially since I took my last class in my freshman year of college. But I do feel pretty confident overall, and during our 10 weeks of in-service training, PC volunteers receive five hours of language training Monday through Friday. I've heard it's quite effective. Of course, because I'll be working in a rural indigenous community, I'll also be learning to speak their language. That will certainly be the biggest challenge, but I'll have to take that as it comes. Many Ngobe tribe members, for example, speak Spanish as a second language, so that will probably be our primary means of communication. Peace Corps places volunteers all over the world, where language barriers are much more difficult to transcend than what I'll be facing. Sure, the first few months of living with a host family that speaks only Spanish will be awkward and frustrating at times, but I consider myself incredibly lucky to be going to a place where I have an advantage.

But don't mistake my relative sense of comfort for overconfidence. Here are some of the ways I've been dusting off my Spanish skills:

Rosetta Stone- This is the second year that Peace Corps is offering a trial version of this software to volunteers for free. They've strongly suggested we log at least 40 hours in the program before we arrive at our staging event in August. When I found this out last week, I'd already completed at least 20 hours on a version Michael B. downloaded for me. Kind of stinks because those hours won't count toward my total.

Overall, I consider this a pretty useful tool for review. It's brought back a lot of vocabulary I'd forgotten, and forced me to think about and remember verb tenses. So far I've skipped forward through a lot to level 3 of 5, mostly doing review sessions until I find material I'm unfamiliar with. It's all been easy, and I'm getting a little bored with it, but I try to log at least two hours a day. I hope levels four or five provide opportunities to learn some new material.

I'm unsure how successful of a tool it would be for people who have no Spanish background. I learn languages best by memorizing grammar rules, conjugations, irregular verb tenses, etc. This software immerses you in the language, and uses a combination of images, listening, reading, and matching exercises to teach those things. They never, for example, show you how to conjugate anything in imperfect tense, but make you infer it from images that you think might be asking "When I was young, I played baseball often." It's great for me, because it brings back what I already know quickly and concisely. But I'm not sure I would ever really catch on if I couldn't already read and understand the sentences.

Further, don't expect this software to make you fluent. I don't expect I'll be saying the sentence "Necesito alguien que arregle mi lavaplatos" in the Panamanian jungles ("I need someone to fix my dishwasher"). Sometimes the vocab they focus on seems too narrow, but maybe I'm just too eager to learn more.

Berlitz Essential Spanish: If you're like me and benefit from having specific rules and tenses laid out for you, check out this book. It is incredibly easy-to-follow and covers everything from present tense to imperfect subjunctive. I poured through Barnes and Noble's selections of Spanish-language guides, and this was by far the best. It also comes with a CD-ROM for listening and reading exercises. I haven't tried it, since most of the material is either too easy or similar to Rosetta Stone's. Buy this book if you want a quick, concise, and clear review. Good book to study from.

Noticias: The speakers on the Rosetta Stone software talk very slowly. I watch Univision news to help me get used to hearing Spanish at the pace natives speak it. Plus, I watch their Nueva Inglaterra edition, so I still get to hear what Mayor Tom "Mumbles" Menino is up to.

Maybe I should come up with new ways to learn. Perhaps going to a Mexican restaurant and ordering things like "tequila" or "margaritas" or "guacamole" could help me practice my accent.