Me molesta su actitud.

Hey - lo!

Okay. It's been days since I last posted. Not sure what I did with all of that time?

Well, I do remember one thing I did...I kept a list of new Spanish words I discovered in stores, during conversations with Spanish speakers, on TV, etc. In other words, I managed to use metacognitive, cognitive, and social/affective learning strategies to learn a language (monitoring, note-taking, questioning for clarification).

BUT, what word/phrase do I have on my mind now?

Me molesta su actitud.

I have been dealing w/some life issues and today, of all days, I had to deal with someone who was, to put it politely, a pain in the bum. So when I opened my email and finally read my back log of words of the day, imagine my feelings when I saw "molestar" and the sentence "Me molesta su actitud." Yep. That phrase sure will come in handy today, but I will only repeat it to myself so's not to offend the person who is "molestaring" me.

Hmmm. This is my 7th post and satisfies the assignment requirements...not sure if Dr. R wants us to continue with the blog process, but I do know that I am going to stick w/my Spanish "lessons" from here on out. I even formatted my Spanish WotD list and printed it out this morning. I am going to keep at this until I sound so good people will think I AM a native Spanish speaker.

Until that moment, keep me in your thoughts! Can't say this hasn't been a loco ride!

Hasta chicos,

CRJ

No se como continuar...Soy cansada

Hola Peoples-

Well. I have clearly fallen off the language wagon.

I was busy, busy, busy the past few days (muy occupada) and it was impossible to stick to with WotD or on-line lessons. I've pretty much been going from school to school, subbing in ESOL, Science, and English and tutoring a kid in French when I had any free periods. Add to that my reading and assignments for T2000 and I so wasn't lista for Spanish.

I did learn two new words over the past 5 days though:

chapin

and

gamanances

"Chapin", according to the students I subbed for two days last week, is a Guatemalan word for a person who is a native of the country, as in "You're a chapin man!" The students told me it could be loosely translated as "Yo, whassup chapin!", but I am not so sure. Don't get me wrong. I trust that it does mean someone from Guatemala (I checked w/a teacher); but, that same teache told me she doesn't think the usage is correct.

Hmmm?

Whom to believe?

Not sure. So, I think I will not use the word until I get a handle on it's appropriate use.

The next word, las gamanances, means dimples. Another kid in a class I subbed for had great dimples. So, ever inquisitive, I asked "Cual es la palabra por eso?" and pointed. Thus, a new vocab word was born.

That's really all I've done in terms of language acquisition. I still get my WotD, but I have only glanced at them and filed them away for future use.

To be honest, I feel as if my learning stragegies thus far are not very organized:

listening to native speakers and asking about words
reflecting on what I hear/understand
(occasionally listening to Spanish music/television)

Perhaps I will give myself credit for doing that much and simply continue to plug along.

Until next time (hasta la ultima blog)...