Bad Day For Languages and Miranda

1.) In German class I finally found an area in which the rest of the class is far superior to me. And that is gender. Pretty much, at Parkway West, you could get all the way to level 3 without losing more than a negligible handful of points for knowing absolutely nothing about gender. I probably have a vocabulary of 20-30 German words that I am positive about the gender of. This isn't so for my class. And what's more, they seem quite sensitive to it, which is going to make me stop chattering very much. I said "Es gibt ein Hund", and there was a long, awkward silence before one of them said, "Einen hund?" Not really even like they were confused, more like they pitied me or something. Grrrr... So tht was sad/embarrassing. I'm trying guys, I am, I'll never learn a word without properly learning it's gender again, but... cut me a break for the first few weeks?

2.) I accidentally used the tu form once for my Spanish professor.

3.) One of the students in my group was continuing to use 'realizar' like the normal sense of English realize. I had always been taught that the Spanish realizar could only be used like in the English phrase "to realize your dreams", etc. So I told him that it might be better to use "darse cuenta", and while I was explaining the distinction the professor came up and listened. To his credit, he waited for me to finish, but then he basically said that it wasn't true. I was shocked, but I mean, he has the fancy pants degree in Spanish, not me, so I didn't really argue, I just was like, "Oh... In my high school they taught me something different. I'm sorry."

Then he went on for SEVERAL MINUTES, for the whole class, writing on the board Realizar = Notar, Darse Cuenta, Cumplir. (Realizar = Notice, Realize, Achieve) He said repeatedly that it wasn't a false cognate, that it actually could serve both meanings in Spanish. I was so confused, I couldn't believe I was hearing correctly. Of course we all wanted to use realizar instead of darse cuenta, it's easier to conjugate! But Altadonna and Kiser had been insistant. I was totally humiliated, too, especially in front of the student I had corrected. That will teach me, I guess.

When I went back to the dorm, I asked Maria about her take on the realizar thing. She sided with me 100%. So I looked online, and the internet agreed with me too. Finally, I called Lucia and she agreed with me. Finally, I checked a good monolingual Spanish dictionary and couldn't find anything supporting the idea that realizar could be used like darse cuenta. I hope he won't hate me, but I was just confused and unhappy, so I drafted an email to him, using the dictionary definition and asking if I misunderstood what he was saying in class, because I still feel confused about what I was taught for so many years. Lucia checked it to make sure it wouldn't make him too mad at me, haha.

But yeah, I'll feel a bit better (certainly less confused) if he admits the mistake, or even says that I misunderstood what he was saying in class, but I doubt he'll announce it to the class, so I'll still look stupid and purposefully mean to them. Great first impression, eh?