Monday 4th August, I officially started my 3rd year of University. I had mixed feelings about starting, because I realised that all my classes would be in Spanish. To make matters even more difficult, Chilean Spanish, with an accent I'm still adjusting too!
The accent here is not your typical Castellano Spanish accent. For one, because of the speed. Sure, Spanish speakers may have a tendency to speak fast, but I did not realise it would be this speedy out here! I find that in having conversations, I sometimes take a while to reply, because my mind can't process the words fast enough. I have to try and work out what was said, which is made especially difficult by the lack of pauses between words and the common sounding word endings, plus the fact that vocabulary may be used which I am unfamiliar with, especially amongst the slang which the Chileans of the same age as me may use.
Another difficulty I have is that there are some grammar differences between Chile and Spain. For example, in Spain, a word ending in -ado or -ido, such as Cansado (Tired) is pronounced entirely. However, here in Chile, the -d sound is silent, meaning a word like Cansado, is made to sound like Casao, which has no meaning. Getting used to this rule has made it so that I have been confused on several occasions as to what the hell is going on.
Therefore, you could say my first few weeks have been difficult while adjusting to this accent, and not only that, but having to learn new everyday slang and vocabulary, of which some may only be used in Chile. Such phrases are known as Chilenismos here. However, I can feel myself progressing, and the year abroad having the impact it is supposed to, as I feel I am becoming more and more competent in talking to strangers in Spanish. Sure I'm not perfect by a long shot because some of what I say may be severely Anglicised so that it doesn't make sense to the Spanish speaker, or because of the speed of speech, which means I often find myself asking ¿Qué diciste? (What did you say?) or ¡Habla más lento! (Speak slower!)
The most common thought running through my mind has been, "How the hell are you going to pass if you can't even understand what the lectures are about?" But sure as hell I was wrong! It appears that 2 years of lectures taught in Spanish in Southampton have prepared me for what I thought would be the most intimidating classes I would ever experience! Sure I can't understand every single thing, because the vocabulary can get quite specific, but I'm understanding the majority, enough to get by so I'm never completely lost (that is unless it is one of my classes at 8:30 in the morning for obvious reasons).
So let me tell you what I'm taking. Unfortunately, although I do a degree in French & Spanish, the Universidad Católica doesn't offer French courses, so instead, I have decided to do a module called An Introduction to Political Theory, as well as The Translation of Literary Texts, and finally Chilean Culture & History. I have never studied any sort of political science in the past so doing it for the first time in Spanish is a bit daunting for me, and unfortunately, it is the module I mentioned for which I have classes at 8:30 in the morning, the point of the day where I have no energy to concentrate in the slightest. Even the extremely busy metro ride where I'm usually crushed against the door doesn't wake me up. In fact, just this morning (18th August), I almost hurt myself. I was leaning on the door of the metro, and fell asleep for a few seconds when the doors opened behind me. Fortunately, I reacted fast enough and grabbed the bar next to where I was standing just in time to stop myself from falling into the impending stampede of impatient commuters. It would have been like when a musician jumps off stage at a concert and does a crowd surf, except they get returned to the stage (in this case back onto the metro). Somehow, even after all this, I still didn't feel awake enough to concentrate! To be fair, I chose to do the module, so I can't complain! But all in all I have been enjoying my classes, especially the translation one as it has already taught me a lot of skills which are transferable to the translation exams I will have to do on returning to study in Southampton!
Rather than go into detail though on what exactly I'll be studying in the modules, I thought it would be more fun to write, and more interesting to read about the aspects of student culture I have experienced, and the challenges I have faced this far!
First of all, there is nothing more challenging than finding out that you already have an exam on only your second day of University. It turned out that there were too many Chilean students on my translation module who would have priority registration, and so there were only 5 spaces left for foreigners, the problem being that more than 5 foreigners wanted to take the module, so we therefore had to compete for the spaces through an exam, and only the people with the highest marks would be accepted onto the module. With only 2 days to revise, I made one of the biggest sacrifices I have ever made in my life...turning down a night out drinking to stay in and study. Fortunately, my hard work paid off once again and I got a place on the module, and it is so far my favourite one! The academia surrounding the module is very engaging and makes you think whether or not translation is possible! The exam turned out to be a spontaneous essay on the benefits of doing a year of study abroad. Thank god, I now have no more exams, unless I have some at Christmas, but for now I'm safe!
My experience with registration culture here has been crazy! So rather than choose your modules months in advance like the system in England, here you have to go to your faculty office and register with your student card. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong! There is a huge rush to sign up for modules before all the spaces are taken. Unfortunately for me, this meant missing out on studying a module called Spanish of Chile, which sounds like it could be quite useful. What annoyed me was that I was queuing for about 90 minutes before I could even be seen (fortunately I was with some friends in the same position so just chilled in the sun for that time), and when I was seen, it was just to be told that the module was already full! If you ever come to study in Chile, make sure you beat the rush and register as soon as you possibly can for a module!
What has also been great about the University so far is the events put on by the society dedicated to welcoming and putting on awesome things for the exchange students. So far I've experienced a Choripanada (Almost the equivalent to a hot dog, but smaller, and with Chorizo meat) which was basically a barbeque party which took place in a casino (café) on campus. A party on campus sounded weird at first, but it was actually great on arriving. Very cheap drinks, very cheap food and cheesy music which got better only once you had made the most of the very cheap drinks! I had bad luck though in that they ran out of alcohol just as I got to the front of the queue! This was the first time I had a proper opportunity to get to know people, and I feel like I made the most of it! I mainly got talking to different groups of Americans, and even met a few British people, and some of the people I met on this night have become some of my closest friends so far! We've been trekking, drinking, doing touristy things, but all that is to be explained in another post!
The accent here is not your typical Castellano Spanish accent. For one, because of the speed. Sure, Spanish speakers may have a tendency to speak fast, but I did not realise it would be this speedy out here! I find that in having conversations, I sometimes take a while to reply, because my mind can't process the words fast enough. I have to try and work out what was said, which is made especially difficult by the lack of pauses between words and the common sounding word endings, plus the fact that vocabulary may be used which I am unfamiliar with, especially amongst the slang which the Chileans of the same age as me may use.
Another difficulty I have is that there are some grammar differences between Chile and Spain. For example, in Spain, a word ending in -ado or -ido, such as Cansado (Tired) is pronounced entirely. However, here in Chile, the -d sound is silent, meaning a word like Cansado, is made to sound like Casao, which has no meaning. Getting used to this rule has made it so that I have been confused on several occasions as to what the hell is going on.
Therefore, you could say my first few weeks have been difficult while adjusting to this accent, and not only that, but having to learn new everyday slang and vocabulary, of which some may only be used in Chile. Such phrases are known as Chilenismos here. However, I can feel myself progressing, and the year abroad having the impact it is supposed to, as I feel I am becoming more and more competent in talking to strangers in Spanish. Sure I'm not perfect by a long shot because some of what I say may be severely Anglicised so that it doesn't make sense to the Spanish speaker, or because of the speed of speech, which means I often find myself asking ¿Qué diciste? (What did you say?) or ¡Habla más lento! (Speak slower!)
The most common thought running through my mind has been, "How the hell are you going to pass if you can't even understand what the lectures are about?" But sure as hell I was wrong! It appears that 2 years of lectures taught in Spanish in Southampton have prepared me for what I thought would be the most intimidating classes I would ever experience! Sure I can't understand every single thing, because the vocabulary can get quite specific, but I'm understanding the majority, enough to get by so I'm never completely lost (that is unless it is one of my classes at 8:30 in the morning for obvious reasons).
So let me tell you what I'm taking. Unfortunately, although I do a degree in French & Spanish, the Universidad Católica doesn't offer French courses, so instead, I have decided to do a module called An Introduction to Political Theory, as well as The Translation of Literary Texts, and finally Chilean Culture & History. I have never studied any sort of political science in the past so doing it for the first time in Spanish is a bit daunting for me, and unfortunately, it is the module I mentioned for which I have classes at 8:30 in the morning, the point of the day where I have no energy to concentrate in the slightest. Even the extremely busy metro ride where I'm usually crushed against the door doesn't wake me up. In fact, just this morning (18th August), I almost hurt myself. I was leaning on the door of the metro, and fell asleep for a few seconds when the doors opened behind me. Fortunately, I reacted fast enough and grabbed the bar next to where I was standing just in time to stop myself from falling into the impending stampede of impatient commuters. It would have been like when a musician jumps off stage at a concert and does a crowd surf, except they get returned to the stage (in this case back onto the metro). Somehow, even after all this, I still didn't feel awake enough to concentrate! To be fair, I chose to do the module, so I can't complain! But all in all I have been enjoying my classes, especially the translation one as it has already taught me a lot of skills which are transferable to the translation exams I will have to do on returning to study in Southampton!
Rather than go into detail though on what exactly I'll be studying in the modules, I thought it would be more fun to write, and more interesting to read about the aspects of student culture I have experienced, and the challenges I have faced this far!
First of all, there is nothing more challenging than finding out that you already have an exam on only your second day of University. It turned out that there were too many Chilean students on my translation module who would have priority registration, and so there were only 5 spaces left for foreigners, the problem being that more than 5 foreigners wanted to take the module, so we therefore had to compete for the spaces through an exam, and only the people with the highest marks would be accepted onto the module. With only 2 days to revise, I made one of the biggest sacrifices I have ever made in my life...turning down a night out drinking to stay in and study. Fortunately, my hard work paid off once again and I got a place on the module, and it is so far my favourite one! The academia surrounding the module is very engaging and makes you think whether or not translation is possible! The exam turned out to be a spontaneous essay on the benefits of doing a year of study abroad. Thank god, I now have no more exams, unless I have some at Christmas, but for now I'm safe!
My experience with registration culture here has been crazy! So rather than choose your modules months in advance like the system in England, here you have to go to your faculty office and register with your student card. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong! There is a huge rush to sign up for modules before all the spaces are taken. Unfortunately for me, this meant missing out on studying a module called Spanish of Chile, which sounds like it could be quite useful. What annoyed me was that I was queuing for about 90 minutes before I could even be seen (fortunately I was with some friends in the same position so just chilled in the sun for that time), and when I was seen, it was just to be told that the module was already full! If you ever come to study in Chile, make sure you beat the rush and register as soon as you possibly can for a module!
What has also been great about the University so far is the events put on by the society dedicated to welcoming and putting on awesome things for the exchange students. So far I've experienced a Choripanada (Almost the equivalent to a hot dog, but smaller, and with Chorizo meat) which was basically a barbeque party which took place in a casino (café) on campus. A party on campus sounded weird at first, but it was actually great on arriving. Very cheap drinks, very cheap food and cheesy music which got better only once you had made the most of the very cheap drinks! I had bad luck though in that they ran out of alcohol just as I got to the front of the queue! This was the first time I had a proper opportunity to get to know people, and I feel like I made the most of it! I mainly got talking to different groups of Americans, and even met a few British people, and some of the people I met on this night have become some of my closest friends so far! We've been trekking, drinking, doing touristy things, but all that is to be explained in another post!
These are just a few of the people I have met, all from different countries. This was taken when we decided to go for a trek in the Andes, which turned out to be an awesome, sunny, but horribly tiring day!
What was crazy was that on Thursday (21st August), there was a party in Casa Central which is the main campus of the University. I didn't expect it to be that great, but I was wrong, it turned out to be my favourite night here so far, apart from one night i spent in a Jazz club, these two were about equal! The more drinks I had, the better my Spanish became (at least I think so), and I ended up having what I remember to be a very fluent conversation which lasted what seemed like an hour in drunk time, so putting that into sober time, it was probably about 30 minutes! I met so many Chilean people, with one guy repeatedly coming up to me after he had thought of the name of another Welsh celebrity. Every 5 minutes I was interrupted by "Ehhhh Tom Jones!", "Ehhhhhhhh Ryan Giggs", "Ehhhhh Gareth Bale", and I think I managed to convince him that there is a big celebrity in Wales called Jamie Furlong which was hilarious! I'm also pretty sure some American believed me when I told them I study in Hogwarts University doing Potions. "What's that, like Chemistry?" No comment necessary.
But for now, that is what I have been getting up to in University! I've now settled into a routine, and am stuck into studying, so I'm currently a busy man. I also had a class the other day in which I was told that over the next 2 months, I will have 4 exams, so I look forward to those! Now my student loan has come in as well, I'm also starting to seriously look into travel plans, especially Easter Island, so things over here are really picking up!
As always, thanks for reading! Until the next post!
What was crazy was that on Thursday (21st August), there was a party in Casa Central which is the main campus of the University. I didn't expect it to be that great, but I was wrong, it turned out to be my favourite night here so far, apart from one night i spent in a Jazz club, these two were about equal! The more drinks I had, the better my Spanish became (at least I think so), and I ended up having what I remember to be a very fluent conversation which lasted what seemed like an hour in drunk time, so putting that into sober time, it was probably about 30 minutes! I met so many Chilean people, with one guy repeatedly coming up to me after he had thought of the name of another Welsh celebrity. Every 5 minutes I was interrupted by "Ehhhh Tom Jones!", "Ehhhhhhhh Ryan Giggs", "Ehhhhh Gareth Bale", and I think I managed to convince him that there is a big celebrity in Wales called Jamie Furlong which was hilarious! I'm also pretty sure some American believed me when I told them I study in Hogwarts University doing Potions. "What's that, like Chemistry?" No comment necessary.
But for now, that is what I have been getting up to in University! I've now settled into a routine, and am stuck into studying, so I'm currently a busy man. I also had a class the other day in which I was told that over the next 2 months, I will have 4 exams, so I look forward to those! Now my student loan has come in as well, I'm also starting to seriously look into travel plans, especially Easter Island, so things over here are really picking up!
As always, thanks for reading! Until the next post!