Labratorio Para Idiotas

Speaking better Spanish was one of my three primary goals upon relocating to Argentina. The University of Buenos Aires or UBA, offers a twice yearly one month intensive ‘Spanish for Foreigners’ course, which had been on the clanender for over a month now. I had finally convinced myself (and Ethan) that this intensive course was not only imperative but also critical to both of our future successes here in Latina America. Needless to say we were upset when we both woke up three hours late for the evaluation exam because we were playing poker until five in the morning.

The intensive version of this Spanish course is three hours a day, five days a week for four weeks. It is also very popular with gringos and fills up quickly. Get here early was the only advice I had received when initially investigating the course. We bolt into action and arrive at the Language Laboratory campus disheveled and unshaven, jumping from the cab almost before it stopped. The younger woman at the information booth tells us that we’ve missed the morning round of testing and have to return at 5pm later that same day. We are both handed slips of paper with the numbers ninety and ninety-one on them and leave, dejected and also a bit sick to our stomachs, which may or may not be attributed to my burgeoning cooking skills and my now somewhat infamous lentil stew.

We return well before 5pm and wait around until after 5pm only to realize that the testing has already begun in another room. We each receive our two-sided sheets of paper, which along with an oral evaluation will place us between levels 0-6. At first glance I almost burst out laughing as the exam looks impossible and I realize once again that I can speak much better Spanish than I can read or write. At one point I caught Ethan’s eye and just whispered, “don’t forget to include ‘Paraguay’ in one of your answers!” We both laughed out loud and continued to plug away, writing something, anything on the fairly cryptic exam. When I finally turned in my test, the woman in charge at the front table was trying to slowly communicate to a younger male Japanese student which level that he was going to be in. He politely nodded his head at her and she turned to her collegue and said in Spanish, "he doesn't understand a word I'm saying." She then simply made a zero sign with her hand and said to him once again in Spanish - "ZERO!"

Afterwards we both had a good laugh and Ethan asked me about that one question which was something about ‘How much does your sister cost?’ I only remember the one that was something like ‘If there’s a terrible storm_______________.’ My answer was something like ‘you need to run cause you might get hit by a bolt of lighting’, which I totally misspelled beyond the point of recognition so badly that she actually asked me, ‘and what we’re you meaning by this answer?’ (Ethan put some like '... agua y agua y AGUA!')

As we wait for them to grade our tests I’m thinking she probably won’t even be able to decipher my horrible penmanship, let alone actually score the test. After about an hour of waiting and watching Ethan randomly bump into two different women that he knows from his first visit (more on that strange and slightly surreal experience later – although I can say that he did throw himself on the floor after Stella, his ex-Spanish teacher left the room causing half of the students to turn around and look back, seeing him laying face up on the floor) I get called forward and sit down with one of the all-female instructors to go over my exam and to chat. “All of your answers are fine and there are only a few minor mistakes, but I noticed that you didn’t use the subjunctive at all, either on your test or your verbal answers. Do you know the subjunctive?” she asks? “Umm… I think I’ve heard of it,” I stuttered back trying to fake some kind of answer. “OK – level four, you start on Monday.”

Ethan tested into level two and just like that this painfully hysterical situation is over and now the challenge begins. I’ve taken three college courses since dropping out of college my senior year at San Diego State University and am not that thrilled to be back at it. Spanish was one of my worst classes and I think I failed level three twice back then. And that was almost twenty years ago. At least my class doesn’t begin until 2pm unlike Ethan’s rude awakening for his 9:30am level two course tomorrow morning. [TBC]