My homework took a little longer than I anticipated this morning, so Albert went to the store without me. Then, he cooked his own lunch (since he wanted to use the Jambalaya mix that Emily had given him for Christmas.)
I found some more listening exercises for Spanish and shared them with Albert. This is one area where progress seems really slow for me. I certainly understand more now than before, but when locals are talking at speed to each other - I am still basically clueless.
In class today, there were only two students. As a "check", we did a large portion of a practice exam to determine our level. Luckily for me it was the written exam and so it was ok. We are going to do the listening portion on Thursday - ugh.
After class, I went to intercambio. For almost two hours, I spoke with my partner. He speaks in English (the language he is studying) and I speak in Spanish - with each of us correcting the other. A few times today, he was trying to figure out how to say things in English and couldn't figure them out so he said them in Spanish and I translated - giving him the English. This may not seem like a big deal, but for me it was nice. For months this type of help only went the other way - when I couldn't say things in Spanish, I would say them in English and he would translate. Having had the same partner for nearly 7 months, our conversations are definitely more interesting than some of the people who are new who spend most of the intercambio exchanging basic greetings, reasons they are learning Spanish/English, where they are from.... Today, we talked about how he and his brother are remodeling their kitchen. Luckily, I know lots of kitchen vocabulary!
After class, the warm, sunny day had turned cool; but I still had a couple of miles to walk. So, I headed up to the next bridge and then walked around a bit before heading home.
