This is where my teacher placed me today, as nearly imtermediate level but not quite there. OK, I suppose, given that I didn’t really speak a word of the language until three weeks and a couple of days ago. I think I would have been more advanced had I not been working, and been better at studying, reviewing and doing my homework. Not to mention, been more confident.
Another student has joined my class, which also feels like it is slowing us down a bit. She is pretty much exactly the same level as me and has far more interesting work than I do which made me briefly envious, until I remembered that my work lets me travel where I want and live as I want and to be disengaged from it at all times.
I suspect I am a bit miffed that I am still classified as a beginner, which is ridiculous given that I am actually a beginner, but that’s what happens when you are so accustomed to being the best at everything that is not physical, artistical or graceful. At all of these I have long accepted my inferiority. (And I suspect never really accepted in my heart that I’m not bad at languages, despite repeated and ample proof.) Perhaps this post should have been titled ‘Vanity of vanities’.
Those moments are certainly a pleasure when a bit of grammar slips into the mind and starts becoming natural. I had never really consciously noticed the process before, maybe that is why previous attempts at language learning didn’t go too well. Plus, three hours daily is definitely better than the one hour thrice a week that I’d previously done, so maybe there wasn’t enough regular reinforcement – especially in a larger class – to have the rules sink in.