Literacy Narrative

Literacy Narrative

The feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming. I vividly remember the feelings of hopelessness and despair that would plague me when I thought that I would never accomplish my goal of being fluent in French. Year after year I made the same New Year’s resolution, to learn French, but by the end of March all that remained where hopes and dreams. Every year a new edition of a audio learning courses was neatly organized in the attic to catalogue another failed attempt. It wasn't until 2012 when I was given an attractively packaged computer assisted language learning software that changed my failed attempts into an attainable reality. The software was called Rosetta Stone and instead of memorizing a list of words or mindless phrases it focused on true power of language literacy. It became clear to me that my Spanish literacy would make mastering the complexities of French sentence syntax, verb conjugation, and noun-adjective agreement simple.
I had never really thought about sentence syntax! During the first French lessons I realized how similar the sentence structures between Spanish and French mirrored each other. Growing up in a bilingual house my parents decided to place me in extra Spanish classes to ensure that I could effectively communicate in Spanish. At times I would use my Spanish teachings, placing verbs ahead of the nouns, to creating some very formal sounding English expressions. As I advanced in both my English and Spanish studies I corrected many of the sentence syntax errors I was encountering but soon discovered a new issue opponent called verb conjugation. I overcame that battle and that knowledge has helped me immensely while studying French. It has been astounding how similar the rules of verb conjugation are between Spanish and French.
Not only where the similarities between Spanish and French amazing but my sister who decided to join me in my French learning journey also had striking similar conclusions. In our opinion it is easier to grasp conjugating verbs in French then it Spanish. Once we saw the pattern to conjugating simple French verbs it felt like we knew hundreds more. From their compound tenses and imperative tenses became second nature to us. As we both continued to advance in our French studies we keep on discovering more similarities that would ultimately help us progress faster in our French studies. The lesson that we comprehended within a matter of hours was noun-adjective agreement in terms of the gender.
Unlike the English language some adjectives in the Spanish language can be either feminine or masculine. Other the years I has forgotten this since I have not written in Spanish since I was 15. When speaking to my mother and father Spanish came so naturally that it was not necessary to think about this subject. Noun-adjective agreement in terms of the gender was keep so far in the recesses of my mind that I was actually shocked that I had to continuously think about it in the French language. In English adjectives are always found in front of the noun and for the most part in French adjectives follow the noun but occasionally adjectives precede the noun which would throw me off. This is because even when the adjective precedes the noun the noun-adjective agreement in terms of the gender still had to be present. With a majority of this subject naturally ingrained in my conscious it took a very short amount of time to move on to the next lesson.
With a strong sense of accomplishment today I have given away my audio learning courses so that I may make room for more important things in my attic. I have thanked my mother many time for sending me to Spanish literacy classes when I was young and have advised my brother to send his children to formal Spanish classes. In the end it was my understanding of Spanish literacy and Rosetta stone’s focus on teaching language literacy instead that reached me in ways that other courses have not. I clearly see how literacy in any language has profound effects in our ability to grow as individuals. In the future when I start college French classes I can confidently say “Bonjour je m'appelle Alegandro et je comprends un peu français!”