Language acquisition at the beach

My Turkish vocabulary now extends to at least ten words.  I can now ask for up to five of the following things:

1. Beer
2. Water
3. Tea
4. Coffee
5. Watermelon

I'm reasonably satisfied with the progress of this, but if I'm honest it's not a critical life goal of mine to become conversant in Turkish.  The project of the moment remains to learn Spanish, properly.

Some weeks ago I found myself on a bus full of Spaniards heading for the coast.  This was something of a step up in what I was expecting of myself in Madrid and represented a vague attempt at making some of my own friends in Spain.  Spanish ones.  I think through work I already know more Spanish people than your average guiri. English folk in Madrid generally tend to be language teachers, and consequently meet each other much more than locals, which impedes their own language learning and makes it harder for them to get to know locals... and so on.  I think I can hope for better integration than that, even in the short time I'm around.

So today I'd like to talk about language, or my lack of it in recent months.  With the level of Spanish I had on arrival I would never have dreamed of going on that trip - I couldn't even have read the website to find it.

Everyone who has put themselves through this process will be familiar with 'the silent phase' when you sit through evenings, lunches and meetings with a gradually improving idea of what's going on but without ever saying a word.  You feel like an idiot.  The Spanish phrase for someone who doesn't speak a language is simple, poetic and appropriate for this situation: estaba una chica sin palabras (I was a girl without words).

It's pretty hard going - my brother is convinced of the need to suffer to learn and language properly and I tend to concur to an extent.  He's maybe a little bit extreme in his views on the matter but it is really very hard to see another way to get beyond the 'tourist' level where you can ask for things and manage basic interactions but can't really engage in proper conversation.  It's perfectly possible to live for years in a country without achieving that higher level: people do and it's not always a problem.  It's just not for me.

I feel like I am beginning to come out the other side now, when people are patient with me and I'm not distracted by actually being in Turkey, that is.  In fits and starts and on comfortable ground I now have words.  It is still exhausting (another feature of living in a country and attempting to learn the language - sheer blind fatigue) but getting better.

On the Monday after my weekend of speaking no English it was as though everything had just clicked into place.  It was definitely worth going purely for the language practice, as I felt myself relaxing in conversation over breakfast.

The trip, incidentally, was my Spanish beach trip for the year - I found the group on the internet and liked the sound of a party on a catamaran as the sun set, followed by beach and hiking the next day.  Here's a picture.