Week One... down

I had my test today (Friday)... it went well! There would a couple of things on it that we just saw in passing and I had to guess, but I pretty much got them right. So I was happy about that. He told me that I need to work on my fluidity and my pronunciation of the q' sound (which is the gutteral click sound). That's hard, though. I *can* do it, but Kaqchikel is hard that way because it has 4 different k-type sounds: k, k', q, and q'. The k' and the q' have glottal stops, which means your vocal chords touch together for a moment, blocking off the air... i.e. it makes a click. Clearly this is one of the hardest things for non-native speakers... I can actually physically make the sounds, it's just hard for me to always do it right when I'm speaking because it takes time for me to locate where to form the sound in my mouth. So, I guess I need to practice that more. Here's a speech sample of Kaqchikel, should anyone be interested.

I think Terry and I are going to Chichicastenango this Sunday, which is a huge, famous market. There are some things I want to buy (like huipiles! - the hand-woven mayan garments), so I'm excited to go there.