In high school, we were required to take two consecutive years of a foreign language class to fulfill the credits in our academic audits. Some of us were smart enough to end it at just those two years, but for students like me and many others, we continued on into college with what seemed like a never ending battle of misunderstanding and mental frustration of recurring events. If you are a foreign language major or studied a foreign language beyond two years, you begin to find humor in your lifelong journey to become fluent in another tongue.
1. You realized the term "oral exam" was no longer funny after actually taking the first one.
You probably found yourself and the rest of your classmates laughing hysterically at the teacher as he was passing out the "oral exam" and soon realized as you were flipping through the pages of the test that it was no laughing matter. I am sure we can all agree that responding with the right verbs, verb tenses and required vocabulary to receive full points was easily the most mind boggling and stressful thing we could put our brains through.
2. Your options were failing or crying hopelessly.
Whether you are speaking with a native, or enduring that exam, it is safe to say we have all thought bursting into tears at trying to say the right words or trying to get ourselves out of the situation by overwhelming the other person with our "waterfalling eyes." Or, instead, we just want to cry because we don't understand anything at all and are completely lost.
3. When the teacher announces that there is a quiz on the "imperfect tense," we slowly lose hope for our foreign language knowledge.
Preterit versus imperfect exams are easily the worst quizzes on this planet for a foreign language student. First of all, we aren't quite so sure of the meaning of those two grammar concepts in English, let alone another language. There goes our dream of successfully understanding grammar. .. in English as well.
4. In terms of learning grammar, we end up questioning our abilities to speak our own language rather than the foreign one we are concerned about, because we have never heard the concept of the "subjunctive, imperfect, conditional or progressive" tenses.
I know what you are thinking, "What on earth do those concepts even mean?" This is when you realize that you speak like a backwoods hick instead of the intellectual you think you are, even though you are paying several thousand dollars to do so.
5. You find yourself begging the teacher for extra credit because your test scores are bringing down your grade, and that is socially and morally unacceptable.
This is when the teacher has to finally tell you that he/she can no longer accept anymore tissue boxes or bags of Halloween candy. However, there is the alternative of actually studying [insert tears of a desperate crying student here].
6. When you travel and you can't think of the words to say, you pray that maybe that person will magically start to speak English.
Ahh, and here is where the "dumb American" stereotype begins.
7. At some point, you begin to dream in the foreign language you are learning.
You've been told periodically that it means you are fluent when you finally dream in another language. However, you still struggle to form the sentence of "How are you?"
8. You put off speaking with foreigners until you are "ready."
Let's be honest, those of us that are wanting to speak a foreign language will never be ready. Like Nike says, " Just Do It."
9. You feel like the only vocabulary words you know are in regards to cooking food and restaurants.
I can't tell you how many times I have had to make a cooking show video in school or pretend to order food in a restaurant. Needless to say, if all else fails I can still order you a burrito.
10. We end up appreciating our foreign language teachers for putting up with our horrible speaking and writing habits.
When we start to actually feel like we can speak like a decent communicator, we finally realize that Google Translate is, in fact, the worst resource and you see so many problems with it.
I dedicate a personal thank you to my high school teacher for this one!
