DEL.ICIO.USFor the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/03/07
(Part 2 of a five-part series.)
 SOYIA ELLISON/Special | ||
| Above is the living room of Soyia Ellison's Palermo apartment, located after a frantic search. Utilities, cable TV, Web access and maid service are included in the $630 rent. | ||
 SOYIA ELLISON/Special | ||
| Learning Spanish is a priority for Soyia Ellison. Teacher Dafne Sallago works with students Robert Paech and Erin Scheffler at Academia Buenos Aires. | ||
Buenos Aires, Argentina — As I write this, I'm stretched across the sofa in my Palermo apartment, staring out the sliding-glass door at my very own balcony. A big tree lies within arm's reach of the railing, obscuring the buildings across the street. Seasons here run opposite those at home, so the leaves probably will fall soon. But right now I can pretend I've moved into a treehouse.
After five days of frantic apartment hunting, I received a message from the owner of the bed-and-breakfast where I was staying, saying she'd finally gotten in touch with an acquaintance who manages apartments. My new home is one of them. I met the landlords, Gabriela and Javier Sanchez, and toured the place before I moved in. It was the only apartment I ever saw.
It's great. It has a separate kitchen, living room and bedroom — unusual in small places here — and that balcony, which makes the living room bright and cheery. Though far from fancy, the furnishings are clean and in good shape. For my $630 a month, I also get all utilities, including Web access and cable TV, and weekly maid service.
The neighborhood feels safe and, by Buenos Aires' standards, is quiet.
Back to school
The same day I moved in, I began Spanish classes.
I found the Academia Buenos Aires on the Internet while still in the United States. As a farewell gift, my colleagues had bought me a membership in the South American Explorers Club, an expatriate organization with a clubhouse in the city. Membership entitled me to a discount at the academia, and it turned out that a friend of a friend had studied there and liked it.
That was enough for me.
Before I enrolled, I spoke with a teacher for a few minutes and took a three-page test to determine just how much Spanish I knew. She placed me in Level 2.5 (out of 8), meaning I'd be joining a class halfway through their Spanish 2 studies. She gave me a workbook and suggested I review the past tense between then and Monday. But at that point, I was too consumed with apartment-hunting to do more than leaf through a few pages.
On Monday I discovered that my "class" consisted of just one other person: David Chicard, a good-looking 20-something from France with a droopy-eyed smirk and a snaggletooth that somehow added to his physical charm. By the end of the first lesson, I was pretty sure he despised me. And why not? I'm older than he. I'm American. I grab a Coca-Cola Light during the break while he goes out to smoke a cigarette.
David arrived two months before I did, and though his command of grammar is on par with mine, his ability to speak is far superior. While I stumble and stammer before finally giving up and asking, "Cómo se dice ..." ("How do you say ..."), he rattles off complete sentences.
But he talks with such a heavy French accent that I rarely understand him, like Pepé le Pew speaking Spanish. Of course, I probably sound like Roseanne to him.
Our teacher, Ana Vazeilles, is younger than either of us, a skinny university student with a great smile that manages to seem both embarrassed and sly, as if she's up to something naughty. She spends four hours a day sharing her knowledge with us, sometimes standing at the board lecturing about the pluperfect, sometimes leading us through conversations about customs in our home countries, sometimes conducting memory games like the ones I remember playing at age 5.
All classes are conducted in Spanish.
Making progress
Learning a new language leaves me feeling like a 5-year-old, or maybe more like a stroke victim with aphasia. I know the words are in my head, and if I could only freeze time for 10 seconds, they would come to me. But I can't, and so everyone looks at me like I'm a moron, or prompts me with words that aren't the ones I want at all.
For someone who's made her living by communicating, it's incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I want to say, "I really am smart, I promise."
But as Week 1 has turned into Weeks 2 and 3, I can feel myself improving. About one night a week I take a taxi home from somewhere, and I always chat up the taxistas. With each ride, I find that I'm picking up a greater percentage of what the drivers say, and that my own thoughts are coming a little more easily.
And David and I have come to something of an understanding. At the start of Week 2, we added a third student, a woman from Switzerland. Whether it was the arrival of this neutral third party or the fact that I started giving David a little friendly grief when he makes anti-American comments, I notice that these days he more often regards me with a twinkle than a smirk.
I've met some other students in the school, too. We're an international bunch, from the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Canada, Luxembourg and, of course, the United States. We range in age from 18 to 59. People come and go every week. Some, like David and me, are here for longer periods. Others are vacationers in for a week or two to see the sights and work on their Spanish. The school arranges housing for many of them and organizes twice-a-week tours to various neighborhoods and cultural institutions.
My biggest language concern at the moment is how different Argentina's Spanish is from that in other countries. I'd been warned before I came that I might end up with an Argentine accent, but I figured that would amount to sounding like an American Southerner. You have to be from somewhere, right? But the differences are actually far greater.
If you've never taken Spanish, this won't mean much. But if you have: Argentines conjugate verbs somewhat differently, replacing the familiar "tu" and "vosotros" forms with one called "vos," which takes on slightly different endings. They sometimes use different words entirely — for example, the word "here" in Spanish is "aquí," but in Argentina it's "acá." And they pronounce most "y's" and "ll's" as "zhuh."
It means I'm having to unlearn some things I'd been taught in the States, which I will then have to relearn when I'm back and speaking to people from Mexico or Spain or most other Spanish-speaking countries.
Meanwhile, the other day I accidentally insulted a grandmother by exclaiming "que mono!" ("how cute!") as I passed her and her four adorable grandsons on the sidewalk. Spaniards say "que mono!" all the time. But here, apparently, "mono" just means "monkey."
Next week will be my last at the academia. Twenty hours a week is a lot, especially when you have homework as well, and when you have to commute 45 minutes across town by un-air-conditioned subway at rush hour.
An acquaintance has recommended another school where I can take 10 hours a week of private lessons. That sounds about right. I need more time for exploring, making friends and tango classes.
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