Not Quite as Easy as Driving Miss Daisy

On March 14 I wrote my final exam for last semester and I am so happy to say that I passed all my finals! Two days later I went on an amazing trip with two of my friends from school V and T. We went to Mallorca (Ma-yor-ca), for those that don't know, it is a Spanish Island located east of Spain in the Balearic Sea. We travelled most of the country in the 5 days we had (although we were called crazy for taking a bus 1 1/2 hrs each way!). It was a great trip and I enjoyed getting to know a new part of Spain and practice the Spanish that we had been working so hard on. I've learned it is one thing to be able to pass an exam, but it is a completely different story to be able to use proper language in daily life.

After the trip we returned to Madrid and I have been enjoying a different pace to life. I was supposed to start language study with a tutor last week but due to a few circumstances, it has been postponed to next week. However, my biggest focus at this particular moment is passing my driver's written exam. I have been studying a lot, although I am not 100% sure if this is enough or not. You see, when I was 14 and getting my learner's license in Canada, I had to take the exam three times because I second guessed myself or referred to how my Dad drove (apparently he isn't a perfect driver ALL the time :) ). Hence, you can understand my apprehension about the exam here in Spain. Add to that that it is the government's goal to trick people and have them take the exam more than once, because they make more money. Then add to that google translate to change the Spanish to English. Below I have a few examples of questions that I am having to learn to deal with because of google translate.

Question 1: This sign Cañada does not mean Canada it means ravine but it is also used to let people know about an animal crossing. So I'll let you look at the question and see if you can figure out what the correct answer is!

So here is the logic behind why you have to decided wether or not to eat these animals! The correct translation should be "I may COME across..." however come in Spanish means he/she/it eats. So somehow this translation mixed up the Spanish meaning of this word and the English meaning. By the way, the correct answer is A. 

Question 2: 

May a vehicle reverse into a stinker? Well what is a Stinker? To be honest with you I don't know. Neither does anyone on my team. We have just learned to recognize this question and memorize the answer. By the way, the answer is once again A. 

So now you've seen a bit of what I have been trying to figure out as I am preparing for this exam. Luckily I can take a ton of practice exams and I have been. I have been told that in order to pass I need to do around 100-200 practice exams. Part of this is learning what they are going to ask, but a large part of it is learning the English that is used. Who knew that by coming to Spain I wouldn't just be learning Spanish, but English as well! 

My exam is April 3 and I am currently at 65 practice exams done. I would really appreciate your prayers for this! 

Until next time. K