Language, language, language!

I had language class 5 days last week. I have it again 5 days this week. Teacher is pushing me and the Real McCoys hard to get all three of us to the same level so that we can begin a 1-month intensive together in July.

The good news is that I get a 10 day break from class starting this coming Sunday.

The bad news is that I probably won't blog until the weekend. Sorry.

Things to look forward to during my 10 day break:

• My Butterfly friend is arriving this weekend!
• A trip to the Roman mosaic museum!
• A trip to another Roman ruins site!
• A national friend's wedding! (I've never been to a non-American wedding before, so I'm pretty excited about this.)
• Lots of language study!

And for anyone who's curious about what level I'm at in language, after 10 weeks of study...

• I can conjugate approximately 50 simple verbs in the present tense. (Rumor has it there are harder forms of verbs that I have not been introduced to, such as "to like". Since I can't say that yet, I say "I love a little" instead.)
• I can add a word that is like "will" to a verb to make it future tense. ("I will learn Arabic...")
• I learned the simple past tense last week, but I wouldn't really say that I can DO it yet. I need some time for it to soak in, and practice, practice, practice!
• I know my numbers, days of the week, family words, fruits and vegetables, colors, and a select random handful of other nouns. I only know maybe 15 adjectives, but so far they've been the only ones I've needed. (Big, small, good, bad, young, old, new, hot, cold, sweet, spicy, easy and difficult.)
• I can give directions to a taxi driver.

That's pretty much it. It's much more slow-going than French or Portuguese was...but I wasn't still learning how to read vowels after 10 weeks of studying those languages! As hard as Arabic is, I'm still enjoying learning it. (My Teachers are awesome!) And actually--the challenge of it really motivates me. I just keep telling myself that others learned this language, I can too.

And I have a deep, deep respect for all those who have learned it.

Okay, so with all of that said...I need to get ready for class. Have a great week, and I'll be back to blogging soon.