Honestly, I didn't know what to expect on the 1st day. But I was glad I had joined up because I have wanted to learn a foreign language since a very long time. At the beginning of my career, I had done a basic Japanese language course conducted at one of the IT organizations I was working for. Maybe that had vetted my appetite. I never got the chance to follow through on what I had learnt though. Somewhere down the line I decided to learn one foreign and one Indian language - before I turn 60 :-) The choice of the Indian language was easy. I had realized over the years that learning any South Indian language would be an uphill, if not impossible, task. I was, and still am, told that if you learn one South Indian language, you can understand a bit of the other 3. But I guess that is not my cuppa tea, or should I say coffee? ;-) I want to learn Bengali instead - part of the reason being that I want to read the Bengali literature in the original. Let's see when I get down to that.
So now on to the choice of a foreign language. I wanted to go for something that is pronounced more or less the same way that it is spelt. So French and German were out. Plus it needed to be used across more than one country. Given the fact that Spanish is the second-most used language in the business worldwide, it was the natural choice. And I seemed to know a few words already - Adios, Hola, Gracias and Hasta La Vista (from The Terminator, of course!). :-)
'Spanish?' I asked a group of what looked like students as I stood in the classroom doorway. 'German' they said. The next classroom was for Spanish. As I occupied a bench someone asked from the doorway 'Chinese?'. I said 'Spanish'. Boy! Hats off to thsoe who want to learn Chinese. Patience is not one of my many virtues!
The teacher hadn't yet made his/her appearance. So I studied the crowd around me. Most of them were students from the look of things. I kind of envied them. Back in the Engineering college days, it was all we could do to just scramble up to complete the assignments on time. The thought of doing something extra-curricular never even occurred to anyone of us. Kids these days are lucky. But I was glad that so many had turned up. Clearly they wanted to utilize their time well. 3-4 people looked like they could be professionals. And one was a senior citizen.
A couple of minutes past 9am, the teacher walked in. Before I realized what was happening all the students got up. The professionals and the senior citizen had an amused look on their faces. I guess it has been a while since any of us had to get up because there was 'teacher on the bridge' :-)
First few minutes were spent in introductions and why each one of us was there that morning. Some of the students had the same reason as me - Spanish being the second most used language worldwide - for deciding to learn it. There were a few who had learnt French or German before. But about 4-5 of them said that there was no special reason for selecting Spanish. That stumped me a bit. Why would someone want to spend 2 hours of his/her life on a Sunday morning unless they wanted to do so?
Okay, next up on the agenda were salutations or Saludos - how do you say hello, bye, good morning/afternoon/night, sorry, excuse me and a couple of other things. By 10am the class was over. Wait, wasn't it supposed to go on till 11am? But the teacher said that she wanted to take up the alphabets next and would do so next class.
Alrighty then. Hasta Pronto. Adios. :-)
So now on to the choice of a foreign language. I wanted to go for something that is pronounced more or less the same way that it is spelt. So French and German were out. Plus it needed to be used across more than one country. Given the fact that Spanish is the second-most used language in the business worldwide, it was the natural choice. And I seemed to know a few words already - Adios, Hola, Gracias and Hasta La Vista (from The Terminator, of course!). :-)
'Spanish?' I asked a group of what looked like students as I stood in the classroom doorway. 'German' they said. The next classroom was for Spanish. As I occupied a bench someone asked from the doorway 'Chinese?'. I said 'Spanish'. Boy! Hats off to thsoe who want to learn Chinese. Patience is not one of my many virtues!
The teacher hadn't yet made his/her appearance. So I studied the crowd around me. Most of them were students from the look of things. I kind of envied them. Back in the Engineering college days, it was all we could do to just scramble up to complete the assignments on time. The thought of doing something extra-curricular never even occurred to anyone of us. Kids these days are lucky. But I was glad that so many had turned up. Clearly they wanted to utilize their time well. 3-4 people looked like they could be professionals. And one was a senior citizen.
A couple of minutes past 9am, the teacher walked in. Before I realized what was happening all the students got up. The professionals and the senior citizen had an amused look on their faces. I guess it has been a while since any of us had to get up because there was 'teacher on the bridge' :-)
First few minutes were spent in introductions and why each one of us was there that morning. Some of the students had the same reason as me - Spanish being the second most used language worldwide - for deciding to learn it. There were a few who had learnt French or German before. But about 4-5 of them said that there was no special reason for selecting Spanish. That stumped me a bit. Why would someone want to spend 2 hours of his/her life on a Sunday morning unless they wanted to do so?
Okay, next up on the agenda were salutations or Saludos - how do you say hello, bye, good morning/afternoon/night, sorry, excuse me and a couple of other things. By 10am the class was over. Wait, wasn't it supposed to go on till 11am? But the teacher said that she wanted to take up the alphabets next and would do so next class.
Alrighty then. Hasta Pronto. Adios. :-)
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