Spanish Progress

I've been studying Spanish for only one year, and already I can speak Spanish! Well, not so much speak Spanish as write Spanish. And, not so much write Spanish, as pick out the words I want to use from a group of Spanish words. And, when I say group of words, I mean I can pick out the correct six words from a group of eight or nine words. Sometimes. Sometimes I pick out a wrong word and I get the sentence wrong, but usually I pick the correct words. And sometimes I put them together in the wrong order, but sometimes I put them in the correct order. If I have to put together a short Spanish sentence, I can do it in less than ten minutes! By "short," I mean six words. Maybe eight. Although, I've been stumped by sentences with only two words. "It means what? What?? Whaaaaa.... spell it!"

To learn Spanish, first I went through a Spanish dictionary and I crossed out all the words I knew I would never use. Such as "xilofonista" (xylophonist). No one has ever said the word "xylophone" to me. Never. I'm not sure I still remember what a xylophone is. Is it a musical instrument or a weird game? Either way, I think it is played using balls on sticks. 

I already knew many Spanish words before I began studying. For example, I know how to say the word "macho" in English. In English, it's "macho." That's easy to remember. And I can write "Mexico" in Spanish. It's "México." Although the letter 'e' has that little accent above it, which isn't on my keyboard, so I have to write Mexico like this: Mexico. And "kilo" (the metric unit of weight) is written in Spanish as "kilo."

The reason for so many similar words is because English and Spanish have many cognates. (It's pronounced just like it looks: cog-nate). A cognate has the same linguistic derivation as a similar word. So, for example, the English word is and the German word ist and the Latin word est are all derived from the Indo-European word esti. I have to stop now. I've already told you more than I actually know.

In another year, I expect to be able to say, "Where's the baño?" in Spanish. That, and cerveza, are all I really need to know.