Never too old to learn a new language

The show was a success and we had the audience mesmerized to say the least.

Remember my story about learning Croatian at a cafe? Well now imagine 8 adults putting a play in front of hundreds of spectators as they spoke fluent Croatian. It seems we have come a long way with our language abilities. Last weekend the Center for Foreign Languages hosted it's annual theater performance. There were over 18 small performances including our Class: Learning Croatian (Hrvatski Jesik) Level 2. I wasn't able to participate on stage but I did volunteer to film the entire event.

Performances ranged from kindergarten children singing the alphabet in English to Russian students reading poetry and Spanish students singing "Y soy rebelde." Then it was our turn, I felt nervous and I wasn't even on stage! But I knew my classmates would do fine, they were well prepared. When the introduction was made, I heard whispers from the audience, "they are here to learn Croatian?" I wondered if this was a compliment.

The dialogue began and I heard chuckles from the audience as my classmates carried on their play.Then the singing began. Everyone joined in to the song titled Dalmatinac Sam, a favorite amongst the locals. You can also cheer with us by clicking here to listen to this very popular song.

Our professor informed us that we had advanced to Level 3. Yeah!! Now 20 more levels before we can officially call ourselves a Dalmatinac!

After the play we walked over to Buffet Fife to celebrate. L's husband went fishing the night before and brought what he caught to the restaurant to have it cooked by one of the chefs as a gift to our class. We also ordered house wine, beer Karlovacko, calamari, bakalar, and sang the night away.

No better way to end the evening than in good company. As we were leaving a couple of tourists stopped us and asked what was the occasion for our celebration and I replied, "We are all imports (expats) and we are living in Croatia and we met by attending Croatian lessons." Then I introduced everyone, "E is from Jordan, C and L are from Italy, N and Y are French, E from Portugal, M is from Brazil and P is from Canada, and myself from Mexico." The couple exclaimed, "we're also from Canada!" And the lady continued by saying,"we had paid our bill but then you began to sing, so we decided to stay a bit longer because you seemed like such a happy, and diverse crowd."

I'm very proud of my accomplishments and can honestly say I have improved my written grammar skills. It's still somewhat difficult to speak Croatian and I always, always stumble on my words. But somehow my in-laws understand me. Now I just have to continue practicing daily because I don't want to forget what I have learned. (At home, I speak English with Hubby and Spanish with Daughter, and when we visit my in-laws I speak Croatian.)

Do you have any tips of how I can continue to improve my new adopted language?Fashion Magazines? Children's books?