“But can you actually understand Spanish?”

Sorry long rant

It’s been almost a week and this comment is still bothering me. I’ve been taking Italki lessons from someone since 600 hours. I told her when we started that I was just learning by watching YouTube videos and listening to podcasts.

She doesn’t speak English but she does speak Honduran sign language and I know American Sign Language. So sign language is kinda our language in common but she’s only used it maybe a dozen times for a word here or there.

Our classes are 100% in Spanish. I can understand her 98% of the time and usually the 2% is a new vocab word that she can explain. I know I sound like a kid talking in Spanish but we’re able to have a conversation.

This week she asked me what I did this past weekend. I told her I basically just spent it cleaning the house and studying Spanish. She asked me what I was studying. I told her I was just watching videos like I normally do. This time I explained DS and CI. And she said to me “but can you actually understand Spanish? I don’t think you can learn a language that way. How do you know if they’re talking it the past tense without knowing the past tense?”

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Ma’am we’ve been speaking in Spanish this whole time. I knew nothing before I started learning and I defiantly haven’t learned much with you. How do you think we’ve been having our conversations in Spanish if I can’t actually understand Spanish???