Finally! I Learned to Type in Spanish!/¡Por Fin! ¡Aprendí a escribir en español!

I found a very helpful website that explains how to easily type in Spanish. Here it is.
Basically, now I have a little icon on the right-hand side of my task bar that looks like a keyboard. When I click on it, I can change my keyboard to an "United States-International Keyboard". This allows me to type pretty quickly, using just a few modifications in my keystrokes. Accent marks are now welcome! Yay!

Spanish Weekend with My Dad/Fin de Semana de Espanol con Mi Padre

We are still and studying away! We just completed week 7 (I think) of our Summer Spanish Project Contest and I think we doing well! Check out the "Keeping Score" page. As you can see, I'm still winning! (This is very exciting... mostly because the cost of Amazon's Kindle 2 came down in price just last week!)

This weekend (Friday-Sunday) The Husband, kids, and I went to spend time with my dad, a native spanish speaker. We told him ahead of time that we wanted to practice our spanish and he was READY! Boy, by Saturday night my brain was exhausted. The husband said he was all "spanished-out" and I agreed (but only in my head... didn't want to admit it to my dad!). I do believe trying to speak in a foreign language throughout the day feels like thinking calculus all day! I don't think I'll ever hear then end of the funny face I (apparently) make when I'm about to say something in Spanish. It's my thinking face, I guess! I think it looks like a combination of me spacing off and me being confused. Right now I have to think so hard before I say anything; there's just no way around it. Maybe with time it will fade away. :)

The conversations over the weekend were slow and effortful but felt good... the way feeling sore after a workout feels good. We did get quite a bit of spanish practice in, though we both feel that we should have done even more. Hopefully we'll get to go back in about a month to try it again. It will be neat (yeah, I said, "neat") to see how much progress we make between now and then. I visited my dad about a month ago and I know that I've made much progress towards being conversational since then. Don't get me wrong... neither The Husband nor I can actually have a conversation in Spanish, yet. Seeing our progress though, was motivating and I know we'll reach that goal eventually!

Direct Object Pronouns and Indirect Pronouns, You Are My Nemesis./Pronombres de Objeto Directo y los Pronombres Indirectos, Tú Eres Mi Enemigo.

We are still studying away, some days more than others. I know I need to add many, many words to my vocabulary. Right now however, the BIG thorn in my side is using direct and indirect object pronouns. Between Rosetta Stone, Learn in Your Car, and SpanishDict.com, I've reviewed and reviewed the rules for how to use them but it is still not coming very naturally to me. This not only hinders my ability to speak the language, it also hinders my ability to understand what in the world is being spoken about! Honestly, in the time it takes me to figure out what a speaker is saying, they've moved on and I've missed something!

Part of the struggle is that in the midst of trying to speak/understand, they all sound the same: me, te, lo, la, nos, las, los and me, te, le, nos, les, se. Using them in the same sentence makes it more tricky!
Here's a sentence that could use a Direct Object Pronoun: She eats a cookie./Ella come la galleta. Here, the direct object is "cookie/galleta". I could say "She eats it". Ella la come. Literally translated, this would be "She it eats".

Here's a sentence that could use both a Direct Object Pronoun and an Indirect Object Pronoun: Instead of saying, "I gave the cookies to Elisa", I could say, "I gave them to her". I believe the correct translation is: "Yo se las dio a ella". Literally translated, this would be something wacky like: "I to her them I gave to her". In other words, you can't translate English to Spanish or Spanish to English literally... which also means you have to know what you are talking about to talk about stuff!! :) Trying to figure out what word replaces what word and what order it's all supposed to go in is perplexing!

What's funny is that what I am explaining now I could totally have all wrong. I'm so confused! Anyone out there that can help? I'm all ears!

He Thinks I'm Cheating./El Piensa Yo Estoy Haciendo Trampa.

Enough said. I am beating the socks off him! The Husband has seriously underestimated how much I want to win. Honestly, I'm kinda sick of studying Spanish. But as long as I have that carrot dangling in front of me, I'm gonna work and work to win the carrot!

You may think that this must mean that when I win the prize I won't want to study anymore. I don't believe that's the case. My theory is that by then I will have obtained a base knowledge of Spanish; Hopefully enough that through daily conversation, reading my favorite books in Spanish, and learning new vocab (through studying), I'll be able to continue to make progress in the language.

Right now I'm really working to get through Rosetta Stone. I'm in the last unit of Level 2. Soon I'll be in Level 3, which is the last level we own. Apparently, they've come out with a Level 4 and 5 but I'm not sure we're sold on purchasing it. I'm looking forward to focusing on some other studying options. Don't get me wrong. Rosetta Stone has really helped build our vocabularies, increase our ability to understand the spoken language and most of all, helped us gain confidence in SPEAKING Spanish. Lately we've just been concentrating on it so much that I'm pretty anxious to see what we can do once we're done with Level 3.

I'm not sure if me winning (so far) is going to get The Husband to pick up his studying time, so I'm going to have to continue going full steam ahead. We'll see what happens... :)

Escupelo Para Afuera/Spit It Out

We are currently in the middle of our "Spanish 20 Minutes"... yeah, we're behind schedule. We haven't done it in a long time! It's pretty painful. But we did end up laughing a lot! It was nice for Chad to sing "Alto! en el nombre de amor antes de romper mi corazon..." to fill up some of the time! WE now know the translation is not correct but it was pretty funny!
I'm starting to get worried. It's already the second week in June and we're not progressing fast enough. I keep thinking that we're almost a month away and we're not speaking the language enough. I know it's just a matter of practice and we've been all out of whack with that. This week our "regular" summer schedules start so I'm hoping we get back into the groove of things.
On a happier note, I posted the results of THE CONTEST for the last 2 weeks on the "Keeping Score" page. I'm winning!

Donde a Estado Yo?/Where Have I Been?

Where have I been? Out of town. Last week my studying was pretty pathetic. I worked a lot then went out of town for a conference. I guess sometimes those weeks just happen. My studying this week has only been slightly better but I have a few days left so maybe I can pull out a win. We'll see. As far as The Contest totals for last week, I'll try to post them soon.
While a couple of weeks ago my confidence in speaking Spanish was boosted, last week I was cut back down to size. I spent the long weekend attending a conference in a city that had a plethora of Spanish speakers at my disposal... just waiting, I am sure, for me to speak some Spanish. I couldn't do it. Ugh, I would try to think up something to say that wouldn't result in them replying back something I wouldn't understand and I COULDN'T THINK OF ANYTHING! Back to the drawing board, hey? Actually, I think the confidence I gained a couple of weeks ago came because that week I studied so much. Last week, before my trip I studied very little. I think I need to go back to immersing myself in the language as much as possible. Funny how different a week or two can be, huh?