Sutton and Josey: Spanish Language Immersion in Panama

This morning, we arrived at class and quickly completed our lesson on preterito imperfecto. This included some practices with listening to stories and filling in the blank with the proper conjugation of verbs. We thought this would be relatively straightforward since we have been working hard to master this tense all week, but there are always some irregularities that catch us off guard. Hector then shared a brief lesson on the difference between muy and mucho. We found that muy normally translates to “very” and mucho translates to “a lot.” Whether or not you use mucho/muchas/mucha/muchos depends on the location of verbs, pronouns, adverbs, and sustentivos (nouns). We did well on the worksheet practice, but the speaking practice is challenging since your mind has to take the time to visualize the sentence. We felt like we were talking like sloths and we hoped our more fluent classmates didn’t doze off too much.  The final part of our morning was putting together preterito imperfect...

  Un barco usando los locks A boat using the locks El Noreweigan Jewel The Norweigan Jewel Un vista del Canal A view of the Canal Sutton en admiración del cielo Sutton admiring the sky                                                  

This morning we got ready a little earlier and decided to make a quick coffee run before school. This would give us a chance to practice our Spanish and get a boost of energy before our four hours of classes. Unfortunately, we quickly realized that Panamanians do not run their coffee shops with the same sense of urgency and efficiency as the US. Not only were NONE of the stores open yet (it was 8am!), but the one store that was open was…well, let us explain. After walking around for a few minutes, we located the singular shop that was open and slipped in thinking 10 minutes should still be plenty of time to get a cup of coffee. Turns out, it was nowhere near “quite enough time” so it was slightly embarrassing to stumble into our class a few minutes late, but luckily not any later than our classmate Felizando. Also, to our surprise, Ervan was also there. Turns out he had just skipped school yesterday, but he was back and Sutton was able to finally put a name to the stories.  During ...

This morning, we arrived at Casco Antiguo for Spanish class and were promplty greeted with a pleasant surprise: we have been moved back to Héctor's class! I was beyond excited, and Sutton was also excited to get to have a class with someone she had heard so much about. We also met our new classmate, Felizando, who is giving Lisa a run for her money in the languages category. He is from Mozambique and speaks Portuguese and French, but is already pretty good at Spanish and says he plans to learn English next. Our class began with learning some grammar and rules around the use of accents (or “tildes”) on nouns. There were many rules associated with this grammar rule, but luckily there weren’t too many exceptions and irregularities. After learning and practicing with the syllables, we went back to review preterito infinitivo and ser and estar practice, and did some worksheet pages before answering question prompts. This ended up being very fun because we got to learn a little more abo...

  Trabajando duro en la escuela Working hard at school ¡Posando en uno de los muchos miradores panorámicos! Posing at one of the many scenic lookouts Una familia de tortugas haciéndose pasar por estatuas A family of turtles acting like statues Vimos un coati! We spotted a coati! Piernas Ardiendo y Corazones Bombeando  Legs burning and hearts pumping Niñas de la naturaleza Nature girls

  El Centro Commercial Albrook Albrook Mall Con los kanguros! With the kangaroos! Nuestro langostino amigos Our lobster friends           Las Mujeres en Panama hacen historia The women in Panama make history Ceviche de Camarones Shrimp Ceviche

This morning, we went back to the regular school day routine: waking up at seven, enjoying a gourmet Josey breakfast, walking to school, and taking our four-hour spanish classes. This morning, though, instead of Josey flying solo, she was joined by her amiga mejor. Upon arriving at the school, we were given a brief tour and were introduced to our new classmate, Lisa, and new teacher, Jose Javiar (aka JJ aka Jota Jota). Lisa is from the Netherlands and was quite intimidating considering she already speaks English, Dutch, French, and Spanish quite well, but she was also very nice. JJ was also very friendly and nice, but Sutton was a little sad she never got to be blessed by Héctors presence.  To start our class we watched a short video about a wishing well to practice our basic conjugations in present tense. This was mostly review and only had a few slip ups with irregular verbs. Once we were practiced enough in present tense, we moved on to Preterito Infinitivo. We started by watchi...

  El Zoologico! The Zoo! La cena a Casa Blanca Dinner at Casa Blanca Caminando en la playa Walking on the beach Iguanas le gustan comida  Iguanas like food La lluvia en su camino The rain on its way

After a long week at school, Josey was ready for the weekend.  After an even longer week stuck in boring, passport-demanding Houston, Sutton was even more ready to begin her Spanish immersion experience.  On Saturday, we booked a trip to Isla de Monos to see the capuchin monkeys and titis (another type of monkey, to clarify). We met our tour guide, Aldo, and drove to the opposite side of Panama City. Here, we boarded a not-sketchy-at-all boat to ride around Gatun Lake, which is part of the Panama canal. It was rather intimidating to drive by three hundred foot long cargo ships, but we trusted our driver.  When we arrived at the first island, the monkeys were a little shy. Nevertheless, Aldo showed off his impressive monkey-speaking skills and coaxed them to our boat with peanuts and bananas.  After a few hours of admiring the monkeys and feeding them a nutritious breakfast, we headed to Parque Nacional Soberenía. There, we took a short hike down a trail surrounded by...

  Hablando con una vendedora Talking with a vendor La salida del sol Sunrise La vista desde la cena The view from dinner Tiempo para gelato!  Gelato Time!  Disparo de accion por un reunion muy anticipado Action shot from a very anticipated reunion

Josey:  T-8 hours I woke up early this morning to go to the Cinta Costera to watch the sunrise, something Kiki had recommended I do. Although it was a little cloudy, it was still beautiful to see the bright orange color illuminate the water and reflect on the shiny buildings of the city. After the sun had risen, I returned to the apartment to get ready to finish up my first week of classes.  T-7 hours I arrived at class and we got right to work with reviewing and continuing to practice por vs. para. Héctor had prepared many online quizzes to help us differentiate and walked us through many more examples. While it was still a little confusing to differentiate between reasons and objectives, two hours later I was feeling much more confident than I had before.  T-5 hours After we had done sufficient review, we moved on to a new topic: preterito indefinido. This is something that I have learned in the past, so it wasn’t too difficult for me to understand, I just had to rememb...

Dar a la Ciudad de Panamá Overlooking Panama City Un Monumento a la cima del Cerro Ancón A monument at the summit of Cerro Ancón Uno de las banderas mas grandes del país One of the biggest flags in the country Edificios en el estilo del Caribe Caribeean style buildings La Ciudad y la Cinta Costera The city and the Cinta Coster El otra lado del el cerro The other side of the hill El agúti!  The agouti! El tucán posa para un foto The toucan poses for a photo  

Josey: This morning started out with beautiful weather, a tasty breakfast, and a pleasant walk to school. Once I arrived, we got straight to work by reviewing reflexivos a little bit, then combining them with imperativos . It didn’t take us too long to review this, and afterwards we moved on to the negative form and looked at how the conjugations change. We finished our practice with a quick worksheet, then took a short break before moving on to our next, and possibly most challenging topic so far: por vs. para .  I thought this was straightforward. I was wrong. To start, there are about a million different uses for each word, and many of them seemingly overlap but then turns out they don’t actually??? For example, por is used for a general place or time, while para is used for something more specific. Of course though, as with any Spanish rule, it seems like there are more exceptions than words that actually follow the rule! The most confusing differentiation for me, though, ...

En frente de Museo del Canal In front of the Canal Museum Una tiende con sombreros Panamanian  A store with Panam Hats "La Tierra Dividido, El Mundo Unido" - El Eslogan del Canal The Earth Divided, the World United - The Slogan of the Canal "Quien siembra banderas, cosecha soberanía." "Those who sew the flags, harvest sovereignty" El simbolo del Canal The symbol of the canal El paseo en bici con mi nueva favorita persona (lo siento Sutton!) A bike ride with my new favorite person (sorry Sutton!)