Oh Spanish...

So it has been exactly 3 months today since I moved to Honduras - knowing how to speak very little Spanish and understanding none. It has been about five weeks now since I realized that my brain is getting used to having to switch between two languages in a single conversation - and it now does it without me making a conscious effort to switch between the two. This has never happened to me before! (Probably because I have never been somewhere long enough for this to happen.) I am fascinated by the transition. For example, if I am talking to my Honduran boss I will (used to) use a translator. So I would be speaking in English, which she understands quite a lot of. She would respond in Spanish and I would understand and respond back IN SPANISH! Pretty sweet! This is a LONG way from my first attempts at speaking the language which went something like this:
When I first arrived I was taken out to lunch by my English boss (who is Honduran but bilingual) and her friend. We were in the restaurant and she was teaching me how to say "I am hungry", which in Spanish is "(Yo) tengo hambre." Instead I said "Yo tengo hombre", which is "I have a man." (Which I obviously don't) And if you say "Yo tengo homro" you are saying "I have shoulder." Ha ha. That story has been my introduction to a few people - it has gotten many laughs.
I have also been taking a class on Mondays with a Spanish lady who speaks very little English. It has helped in terms of me being able to put on paper the proper things, but has not helped my conversational english very much. This is the part that I struggle with the most. I can memorize vocab and learn how to say things in the proper order, but when I have to converse with people all of that goes out of my head. It is very frustrating because almost all of the time I walk away from the conversation knowing what I should have said and that I could have said it. (Which one friend pointed out to me that at least I know what I should have said rather than not knowing at all.) I have also been taking classes three days a week for the last month with my Honduran boss and that has helped enormously. It is quite exhausting though because it takes up so much time in the week. I hope I can find some way to continue.
The great thing about Spanish is that there are a lot of words that are similar to English and therefore if you accentuate the second syllabal instead of the first it is usually right. Therefore there is a lot of the language that when people speak I can understand and when I speak I can guess. You just have to be willing to practice and to try - and be willing to laugh at yourself. The other great thing about Spanish is that they use less words to say more. Like they don't need to include nouns all the time (he, she, you,) because it is implied in the verby conjugation. Oh yeah, I also just think it is a beautiful language.
Still a long way to go, but progress is being made. Please keep praying.
\manda