Hola!

I am officially into my second week living with my host family and taking Spanish classes in Barcelona. My biggest revelation this week has been that American schools teach how to conjugate verbs and how to memorize Spanish vocabulary, not how to speak Spanish. This is very different in the classes I am taking here. In these classes, only Spanish is spoken and we communicate with each other throughout the entire class. Even if our sentences are not completely grammatically correct, we try to communicate our ideas to the best of our abilities. For example, if someone does not know a word in Spanish, instead of the teacher giving the English translation, another student who knows the word will explain the word in Spanish by either defining it or giving an example. It shows that a lot can be communicated without knowing words upon words of vocabulary. It also creates a bigger sense of accomplishment when you successfully explain something to another student or when you understand a new word without the English translation. Not only does this allow for a better understanding of the language, but it allows everyone to be included because people in the classes are from all over the world, so not everyone speaks English. However, it is very common for students from other countries to speak other languages, which shows how little English students are taught other languages.

My host family continues to be very welcoming. They definitely encompass the traditional gender roles and I think this is emphasized by the fact that the mother/wife does not speak English and the father and son do. The father is the one who works in the family, he dominates most of the conversation during dinner, and he rarely helps with chores. The mother, on the other hand, shops for and cooks all the meals, cleans, and does laundry; she takes care of the family. I asked her if she likes to cook, and she said yes but not every day. If this were me, I would then ask my husband to cook some of the other times. I am unsure if this is due to culture or just individual differences. Either way, it is quite different from my family and it is interesting to see the differences.

This past week has been about getting into a routine, so there are fewer things to report, but I will continue to try and update this about once a week!

Adiós!