What better way to learn a language than to combine it with a holiday? Elaine Edwardsheads to Madrid and RTÉ journalist Yvonne Judgeheads to Paris
AN HOUR IN a small room with a good- looking Spanish guy. What more could a girl ask for?
As it happens, it is only one of many terrifying hours I am spending each day desperately trying to make conversation in language classes in Madrid.
The week of lessons is, in truth, more a way to escape work for a sunny citybreak than a serious stab at becoming Penélope Cruz overnight (chance would be a fine thing). My Spanish is rusty but passable in a crisis. I have also come to love the sounds, the clatter and the warmth of Spanish over the course of many holidays, and I want to learn more.
In fairness, no one's going to master a language in a week. But I'd been pottering about with language podcasts in the car and finding them as entertaining a way as any to pass a long commute. I thought I was prepped and armed to the teeth, ready to impress the teachers at the private language school I have shelled out for.
The 25-hour intensive course comprises three classes a day. The first starts at 9.30am - early for this party city - with Hector, a musician and Madrid resident of Mexican origin.
My class is much smaller than I'd expected: just me and a young German woman, Veronika, who is spending a few months working as an au pair and finding the children a bit of a handful. We spend much of the time nodding as Hector slowly, painstakingly, takes us through the finer points of a tricky verb, then waits for signs of life from either of us.
Finding yourself stuck for words, particularly as a journalist, is disconcerting. At times I resort to part-preparing a response for when Hector asks what I did with my free time the previous day.
Our workbook, a junior-infants Dick and Janeaffair with pictures, is designed for teaching Spanish to foreigners. It all looks so simple. But there are many moments when I think of bolting for the door, horrified by my lack of progress.
Maite, a beautiful young Spanish actor, takes us for the second two hours of the day. We have fun with her, learning vocabulary by placing sticky notes on objects around the room and playing games where we turn our backs to each other and describe what the other person is wearing.
On day one I actually do bolt for the door after Maite's class, looking forward to an afternoon hanging out in the Madrid sunshine, sipping vino tinto, or red wine, with my menú del día, or set meal. As I beat a path towards Plaza Mayor I am stopped in my path by Fabian, whom I have paid to spend another hour with me, teaching Spanish conversation. Damn. Forgot about that.
Fabian tries, bless him. But I am hard going for him. Too often I choke with inarticulacy, stumbling on nouns, struggling with the few verbs I know have the power to carry a sentence. Anything other than present tense - forget it.
We talk about films, about Ireland and Spain, about low incomes and the high cost of living and about music. In a desperate moment (for him as much as for me, I suspect) we compare tunes on our iPods. We have some stuff in common, including an obscure Spanish singer who may just have earned me a few brownie points.
Halfway through the week I am invited by an Irish acquaintance living in Madrid to take off with her and some Spanish-speaking friends for a few days at the beach, near Alicante, where they have rented an apartment. It takes serious willpower to resist. But skipping class, particularly one of just two people, would look bad. Damn again.
But, hey, it is the best fun I've had in a very long time, and I'll try to keep learning. If you can make the trip to Spain to learn the language, just throw yourself into it. If nothing else, it's a great excuse to visit a wonderful city such as Madrid, although Spain has hundreds of other language-learning options.
In Madrid, walk down to Rastro flea market on a Sunday morning and squeeze into the little tapas bars on the side streets, alongside locals. Take a deep breath, muster whatever few words of Spanish you have and shout for tapas and una caña, or a small draught beer. Big gulp - you're getting there. You'll have come a long way from "dos cervezas, por favor".
Go There
Elaine Edwardsspent a week at Academia Contacto, Calle Mayor, Madrid, 00-34-913- 642454,
www.academiacontacto.com. She arranged accommodation through the school but would find her own in future.
Aer Lingus ( www.aerlingus.com), Ryanair ( www.ryanair.com) and Iberia ( www.iberia.com/ie) have daily services from Dublin to Madrid.
Getting Started
Miguel Ángel Miguel, language adviser to the Spanish embassy in Dublin, says most Spanish universities have a language school. "Salamanca is the one that receives most students from abroad, followed by Granada."
There are also plenty of private schools. "If you are on the lookout for prestige, you should maybe try to get a school which has been recognised by the Instituto Cervantes."
Another option is classes provided by the Spanish department of education. "The department has a network of schools of languages which are publicly owned. Most of them offer classes for foreigners. It's more for foreigners who are going to settle in Spain, maybe for four or six months, for a short stay. They are very cheap, because they are publicly owned, and you only have to pay €100, or even less."
'For atmosphere I listen to Jean Michel Jarre on my iPod'
I AM FOUR AGAIN. " Je m'appelle Yvonne. Je suis Irlandaise . .." Eighteen fledglings check each other out as our prof, Joelle, struggles with overhead projectors and dodgy tape machines. This is my French class, gathered on a wet Monday on Boulevard Raspail in Paris, united by our love, and our incomprehension, of the language.
We are a motley crew, ranging from 18-year-old Daniella, from Argentina, to 62-year-old Alan, from England. Stereotypes abound. Danilo the Brazilian looks like a footballer, his underpants peeking out from under his jeans. His compatriot Guga saunters in late, coffee in hand, which amuses Joelle. " Toujours le même, le Brazilien!" Tom the Australian is youthful, hungover and enthusiastic. The English are studiously precise.
Then there's Askhat the Kazakhstani theatre director, who seems bewildered.
Joelle takes a deep breath, flourishes the cahier d'exercicesand we're off. The Gaeltacht with Gauloises.
I was in Paris last September when it dawned on me. I was walking back from the boulangerie carrying a white paper bag filled with warm croissants. Twelve of them. I had meant to ask for two.
I had been to France lots of times. I had lived there. Yet I still couldn't speak the language properly. It wasn't that my French was so inept I couldn't rectify the croissant problem. It was more a case of terror. For nothing is quite as effective as Mme Boulangère at throwing an amateur francophone off her stride. A simple request receives a correction: " UNE baguette, madame? Et avec ceci?"
That sorts out the hommesfrom the garçons, testing the mettle of the foreigner, who just may be American. Only those in the know reply " Ça sera tout, merci" without a flicker of hesitation, meeting the horn-rimmed glasses with a confident stare. I only know that now, since I went back to school in Paris.
I had enrolled in an intensive course at the Alliance Française over the internet, paying my way and completing an online written exam. And, zut alors, there I stood, queuing on a chilly morning, clutching my papers (for it was Napoleon who invented red tape) and checking out classmates.
Twenty minutes later we were 18 new best friends inviting each other to our weddings, baptisms and funerals (role-play, role-play).
Joelle has been leading us along like a Breton pied piper, intravenously administering vocabulary and repairing our gaping grammatical cracks without our even noticing.
Little did I know that French has two crucial rules: abandon all logic; and it's like that because it looks prettier that way - parce qu'il est joli.
As the tricks of the trade are revealed, and we pick up how normal people speak, we greet the revelations with knowing nods, winks and choruses of " Ah, parce qu'il est joli."
With four hours of French every morning, the afternoons are a chance to wander the Jardins du Luxembourg or have a coffee as the sun glints off Les Invalides, all the while muttering subjunctive forms.
For atmosphere I listen to Jean Michel Jarre on my iPod, which, as my partner points out, is a bit excessive. The adventure also allows me to pretend I'm back living in Paris full-time. Shopping for books at Gibert Jeune and Fnac, seeing dogs in Armani anoraks wait as their owners buy the new Asterix DVD, hearing locals tut-tut over champagne at Café Flore about their president's love life as they stuff the latest book on the scandal into their Hermès bags.
By the end of the week Joelle beams and tells us we have all come a long way. To celebrate, he says, we will sing some Edith Piaf. Askhat springs to life and dashes out of the door. "Come back," we plead. And he does, brandishing a huge bouzouki, to lead us in a word-perfect but not-so-tuneful rendition of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. It seems he should have been singing all along.
I try out the deux croissantstest. Naturally, Mme Boulangère asks if I am sure I don't want a dozen. I level my eyes and smile glacially. " Non, madame, ça sera tout, merci." Ha!
Go There
Yvonne Judgeattended the Alliance Française, 101 Boulevard Raspail, in the sixth arrondissement; 00-33-1-42849000,
www.alliancefr.org.
Aer Lingus ( www.aerlingus.com), Ryanair ( www.ryanair.com) and Air France ( www.airfrance.ie) fly to Paris from Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast.