Spanish Day Beginning Report

Well, it took 3 days to get my language book and phrase book, both of which arrived today, but in the meantime, I opened up Duolingo on my phone and began crunching away at the first few lessons. Duolingo does not have any real explanations about WHY things are, but it does a very good job of having  you repeat relatively nonsensical words and phrases until you begin to be able to organically start forming your own sentences. I found myself repeating the phrase "Donde esta el bano" on my dog walk today, but by the time I was returning home, I had begun to answer the question and form others. Here's the fake conversation I had with my dog on our walk:

• Me: ¿Donde esta el baño?
• Dog Voice: El bano esta aqui
• Me: ¿Donde esta Scott?
• Dog Voice: Scott en el baño.
• Me: ¿Donde esta su pasaporte?
• Dog Voice: Yo tengo su Pasaporte.
• Me: Gracias. Disculpe. Tu eres el perro?
• Dog Voice: Si. 
• Me: Tu español es bueno
• Dog Voice: Gracias. Adios
• Me: ¡Hasta mañana!

Obviously, this is a fairly bizarre conversation to have. First off, how does my dog have any understanding of what a passport is other than the little blue paper thing that she can't be near when I have it out. Secondly, why is her Spanish better than mine? Finally, I put this together with the words and phrases I was learning from Duolingo plus like 5 words I knew from outside my studies thus far.

I know, you might look at the above and thing that I'm not a beginner at Spanish. I am. Aside from some random lessons during elementary school over 20 years ago, I have never studied Spanish. However, I have determined with my brief three day interaction thus far, it seems easier than Korean and therefore I might have a slight advantage with Spanish that I did not have with Korean or Japanese. Plus, everyone knows random Spanish words like "Si" and "Gracias" and "Adios." I think like 90% of Americans just know these things from TV and movies at the very least (I mean, I bet every American between 20-60 is well aware of Schwarzenegger's "Hasta La Vista, Baby!" from T2).

Anyway, I decided to go with "Spanish Demystified" because of its many positive reviews. I am a non-traditional language student, so when I read that this was a non-traditional language approach, the $13 price tag did not seem like much of a gamble. I'll probably get more out of it than most people.

In the meantime, I have this practice of doing a refresher exercise on Duolingo in the morning, than do 20 minutes of Duolingo around noon-ish during my work lunch break. I'm going to start using my other resources now that I have them. I have also been using some of my break time to watch "La Patrona" on my phone (about 20 minutes at a time) without the subtitles. I know it's overly cheesy (as are most Telenovela's I understand), but just hearing people talking in longer phrases with each other helps keep the brain active. Don't ever turn down the opportunity to listen to some native speakers talking, even if talking jibberish or small talk. I found some news streams via Youtube, so I'm gonna start using those, but right now, I kinda want to know who is going to win this fight over being "La Patrona."

I have not yet tried to start talking to my coworkers, but perhaps tomorrow I will break through the fear and try really hard to say something other than "Tu eres una mujer?" to my coworker. We'll see. I am officially counting today as Day 1 of Spanish now that I have the study materials. I'm not sure if this breaks the 30 day challenge, but we shall see.