1500 hours

Last night one of my roommates comes down to the kitchen, bewildered that all the teaspoons seem to have disappeared. I have also noticed this strange phenomona, and before jumping to the conclusion that a fascist off-shoot of underpants gnomes are to blame, I took my sandwich back to my room and found a spare teaspoon. "Hey! Found one!" I called out. And then I found another. And then the story started to unravel faster than a Michael Bay movie. When the roommates found out that I had horded 8 teaspoons over the last week, they pissed themselves laughing. When I told the story to Camille she too laughed, and thankfully understands my need to have two cups and two glasses in my room at all times (soup, coffee, coke and water). Right now I only have one cup and two glasses, because I just ran out of soup, which means that to re-stock I'm gonna have to go back to England.

Onto Spanish. I currently have an estimated 1500 hours worth of study somewhere in this sieve-like brain of mine, going back 2.5 years. At 600 hours (which I passed in March this year) I was statistically intermediate (according to either the NSA or CIA, which seems like a reliable enough source for my curiosity). But I didn't feel as though I was intermediate until I had about 850 hours (guess who keeps track of these type of things?) When I sat the proficiency exam in September I had 1100 hours in me and was in the high intermediate class. And according to the NSA it requires 2,000 hours of study in Spanish before you are fluent (or at the very basic level of fluency).

So, realisitically, what can I do and how do I feel? I don't feel as though I'm advanced yet, and I probably won't feel as though I'm fluent until June or July. I'm still struggling to express myself and I do have a mental block. If I'm in an English speaking situation I can instantly think of something interesting to say or a funny retort. If I'm in a Spanish speaking environment, I simply don't think of a retort, or that a retort is needed. This might be because retorts in English can be cliched, and I haven't built up my knowledge yet in Spanish. No matter, I'm just explaining what 1500 hours feels like. I speak in quick (but not fast) broken sentences. If I slowed down to think I could do it without gaps, but I prefer speed for accuracy. Most of my problem comes to gender agreement. In English you don't really need to know what the next word is until you say it, but in Spanish you have to know further in advance. And coupled with that I'm still searching for words. I can joke and I can tell stories, but they're in easy sentences and accompanied by lots of gestures and sound effects. Slang: very dicey.

Listening: if I had a better vocab my listening would obviously be better, but speed isn't a problem, and accent isn't really a problem any more. Paying attention is a problem though. I still can't predict what will be said next, though, and I have a terrible memory for the exact wording that was just used (makes it difficult in lectures, as well as learning new words).

Reading: not bad, I understand what's going on but still haven't got the flair of what is well-written and what is not (though I know what is boring and what isn't). I don't have a problem with verb conjugation (that's also in speaking, so yay!), but there are a lot of pesky words that I have to write down and translate later, then learn. I have no idea about my writing as I can't tell if it's right or not, but I do have good spelling.

I can navigate myself through just about any situation, and when people stop and ask me things in the street (happens a staggering amount of the time) I usually understand what they're saying right away. However, a couple of times I've been asked things which I've understood but at the same time not. For example: "Where are you from?" "Australia." "Cool. When are you going back?" I got that yesterday and was sure that I misheard, but no. It was just a left-field question.

So that's what 1500 hours feels like, and at times it's really frustrating wanting to be able to say something and not having the words, and I can't imagine all of that disappearing in the next 500 hours. It would be nice if there was a short cut through all of this, but there isn't, so it's back to study for me! I might check back in when I've clocked in those 2000 hours, and I won't be surprised if I feel as though I've just broken into the 'advanced' category.