spanish class at La UBA

in the spring I took Level 5 Spanish at La Universidad de Buenos Aires, more commonly known as La UBA. Level 4 was nice because they had some classes at a branch office in Palermo, much closer to my neighborhood! For Level 5 I had to go all the way downtown to the Centro, the oldest part of the city, to take my class. This part of the University is located in a beautiful, decrepit old building which apparently was once a hotel! here's some not-very-descriptive pictures of the grand central staircase:

La UBA is free to residents of Argentina (not free for foreigners like me!!) and the state of disrepair of the buildings is honestly a little shocking. There are windows boarded over and parts of the building that are blocked off with piles of rubble! Also there is no toilet paper in the bathrooms, you have to bring your own. And sometimes it gets really hard to concentrate when it's 106 degrees and there's no air-conditioning in the cramped classrooms. Anyway, despite the physical appearance, I believe La UBA is academically the most well-respected university in the country? They say the professors aren't paid very well there, but it's an honor to work there, and it means that you are serious about your area of study, and allows you to be in contact with other leading minds. I've heard this from both my spanish teachers and a few Graphic Design professors that I've run into around town. It makes sense in that a university is supposed to be about ideas and community and academic experience, not flashy stupid expensive buildings. But sometimes it's a bummer when I have to pee after class and I forgot to bring my own toilet paper, again.

So anyway, level 5 was mostly Subjunctive. "No creo que vaya mañana" = "I don't think she's going tomorrow" ... or "Es insoportable que haya tanto ruido en la mañana!" = "It's unbearable the noise they make in the morning!" In English we don't really have a separate tense to express doubt/uncertainty/unlikeliness/possibility/opinion/etc but in Spanish we do, and it's called Subjunctive. We also learned how construct ideas such as "If I had a million dollars I would buy thousands of umbrellas" = "Si tuviera un palo verde, compraría miles de paraguas" and say things like "He told me that when you spoke last week you told him that you hated pizza so I didn't make you a pizza today" which is just a combination of estilo indirecto and a few different past tenses and subjunctives, and I've already forgotten how you're supposed to do that.

At a certain point we crossed into some territory that is, like, grammar that you need to know if you want to submit a formal academic paper and you live in Spain, but it's grammar that nobody on the street in Buenos Aires would ever use for any reason, and if you did they would probably laugh. So I feel like I might've reached the end of the line (for now, anyway) as far as my grammar studies. I still make a LOT of mistakes with past tenses and subjunctives and basically everything I've already learned - I definitely need lots of practice and review, I want to keep learning more vocabulary, but I don't think I will tackle any more advanced grammar for the time being. They do offer a spanish-language film appreciation course for advanced students of Spanish as a foreign language, and I'd like to take that one if I ever have time and money! For now my plan is to read novels in Spanish, listen to the radio in Spanish, turn on the TV news in Spanish, read the newspaper in Spanish, and go out and talk to Argentine friends in Spanish!

"sos extranjera?"

life has been totally totally nuts lately. the greatest point of craziness was saturday, when we were simultaneously moving into our awesome new apartment, WHILE cooking thanksgiving dinner for twenty people. we made a morning run together, carrying boxes from Diaz Velez to Ravignani. Then I started baking the pies while Mike and Jonathan made another trip to pick up more boxes and stuff. I was rummaging through boxes digging for spoons and saucepans while basting the roasting chickens and whipping mashed potatoes all at the same time. Anyway, dinner was really delicious and fun (lots of friends brought tasty dishes too!). It was great to have our house totally filled with food and wine and friends on our very first day. now i'm getting ready for my trip to the USA, i'm leaving in less than two weeks and I have SO much work to finish before I go.

today I called a flete service to arrange a truck to carry the last of our boxes and big stuff over to our new apartment. after talking to the guy on the phone for a minute, he asked, "sos extranjera?" = "are you a foreigner?" which made me smile and laugh because he had to ask me!! like, we actually had a conversation in spanish on the phone for a full minute before he realized that I'm not from here and I talk funny.

Phone calls have been the scariest thing for me here, it's so hard for me to have a conversation in spanish over the phone and I used to be way too terrified to make any phone calls, which made life really complicated and difficult. During my first year here, whenever I did make a phone call, it was just a lot of shouting "what?" "can you please repeat that?" and feeling impotent and frustrated and i'd hang up the phone having no idea what just happened. In person I can rely on body language to tell me a lot, even if I don't understand a single word. Anyway, now it's really gotten much easier and these days I feel brave and optimistic whenever I pick up the phone.

Buenos Aires Spanish Program

Spanish Class
Originally uploaded by elizajanecurtis

Los dos semanas pasadas, asistí una escuela en Congreso para aprender Español. Me gusta mucho, y quiero sugerir a todos quien quieren aprender castellano en Buenos Aires. I am feeling really excited about how much Spanish I've learned, I am still humbled by toddlers who can speak better than I can, but I can actually kinda have conversations instead of just nodding my head and smiling vaguely while I wonder what's going on.
I liked this school because they let you sign up anytime, for just one week at a time, which works well with my erratic work schedule. It's cheaper than taking private lessons and it's fun being in a group class! There are up to 5 people per class, and for around US$100 per week (it's cheaper if you continue for several weeks), you get 4 hours of class each day: 2 hours of grammar and then 2 hours of conversation. It is also nice that they cover some tenses and grammar used by other countries outside of Argentina, not just the idiosyncratic Rioplatense castellano spoken here. Fun times!!
http://www.baspanish.com/ingles/index1.html

Spanish podcast

Murga dancing, Carnaval
Originally uploaded by elizajanecurtis

Here is a podcast to help learn Argentinian Spanish. Translated from the website, "The idea of the Podcast is to allow everyone who's interested, to learn the vocabulary and most common expressions of Argentina. To be able to understand, it's necessary to have a previous knowledge of Spanish."
Even if you can't understand, it's a helpful way to become accustomed to hearing the accent and fast rate of Argentinian castellano.
The episodes I have listened to so far, she has answered questions about local phrases for miniskirt, car horn, mama's boy, and the many meanings of the word "palo". I listened to the episodes about 4 times in a row to gain this level of understanding.
You can get it as a free podcast from itunes, search for Desde el Bano. She also has videocasts on her website:
http://desdeelbano.blogspot.com/