Good answer, but wrong question.

Language learning has its ups and downs.  I remember when I was first learning Spanish there would be days where I felt like I really got it, and days when I couldn't put two coherent words together to save my life. There were times when I felt like I was learning a lot, and times when I felt like I was working just as hard, but not learning anything.  The whole process felt rather magical at times. I went to this woman's home once a week, we spoke Spanish for two hours, I only studied occasionally in between, and magically over time I was able to speak Spanish.  I can also remember multiple occasions where someone asked me something in Spanish and I responded, but then later when I thought about it, I realized I had answered a completely different question than they had asked.  Oops. 

Learning Thai is so far proving to be much the same.  I have a one hour class with my tutor on Tuesdays and two hours on Thursdays.  On Tuesday, I could hardly think or talk and was utterly incapable of producing Thai.  Today, things went much better.  I could mostly follow along and could respond and joke and laugh and tease.  There are weeks I feel like I'm gaining a lot of new vocabulary, or weeks when I can tell I'm suddenly able to use vocab I know, and then there are weeks where I feel like I am stalled, not getting anywhere.  There are times when the only words that pop into my head are bueno, entonces, y, así, and other filler Spanish words. 

And, there are even times when I answer the completely wrong question.  Right after school today I went to look at another apartment with one of the Thai teachers from school (this is not the apartment for me... still looking).  We had discussed that I needed to be back in time for my Thai class so as we walked to the apartment complex next door she spoke some Thai with me (very slowly and clearly:).  I understood most of what she said, but at one point she was asking me something about how long and I couldn't get the rest of it, so I figured it was how long my class is, since that's what we had talked about.  So I answered that (and was feeling good about it) when really she had been asking how long I had been studying Thai.  Oops. 

I was pretty proud though that I even spoke any Thai to her. Usually I get way too embarrassed to speak with the Thais at school which is such a shame because most of them would probably really think it's great and they are a great practice resource, just sitting there for me every day.  I keep telling myself I'll be ready to just talk any day now but then in the end I get too shy.  Oh well, little by little.