After a bit of time to settle in and brush up on my speaking, I was eager and ready to start my intensive course. In the days leading up to the course while practicing in my daily interactions, I wished that I knew more verbs and conjugations to speak with more variety and to move my conversations forward. It seemed like this was the next step that I needed to push my language learning to the next level. When I arrived at the Polis Institute for Languages and Humanities, where I would be taking my course, I was excited to find that on the first day of class my teacher presented us with a list of verbs that was pages long. I didn’t realize it, but my course would be focusing on just what I was hoping for–verbs! Not only did this advance my ability vary my sentences by using more specific words and phrases, it also helped me understand patterns of grammar and verb conjugations. This allows me to teach myself much more easily, because I can fit new verbs into a schema of grammar that I learned at Polis.