Listening to an explanation of Spanish Verbs can be a taxing experience; listening to the explanation in a foreign language is closer to torture. At a certain point in this morning’s Spanish lesson I felt panic born of incomprehension begin to sweep away what little confidence I had about my presence there.
Needless to say I weathered such uncharacteristically realistic assessments of my linguistic ability and by the end of the two hours (without a break) of relentless Spanish teaching I was bubbling with belief in my ability to communicate. Somehow.
The amount of learning that I have to complete before the next lesson is daunting, if not impossible, but this is the month when I am going to make a more than determined effort to try and understand the use of the two different verbs that the Spanish have for ‘to be.’ If I get anywhere with that conundrum then I will assay to comprehend the differences which distinguish the use of the words ‘bien’ and ‘bueno’.
The Sony e-book reader continues to give pleasure, not only because it is easy to read, but also because it affords me the opportunity to be ever more pretentious in the growing selection of books which I am able to put into its memory. There are now 162 books which, on just one electronic page in the index range from The Koran to Macbeth by way of Voltaire, Wilfred Owen and
William Harrison Ainsworth’s “Old Saint Paul’s!” And there is still room left for more. Now that I have discovered http://manybooks.net/authors.php as a website the number of books available for download has expanded interestingly. Of that web site I have to say that it offers what it says in its title!
I have yet to buy any of the books which comprise my electronic library but I keep telling myself there is a whole wealth of past literature in English that I haven’t touched, that’s out of copyright and available in electronic form.
I suppose the real triumph will be when I actually download a book in Spanish. And enjoy reading it! I think that is some time away!
Meanwhile there is my dinner next Saturday with very disaffected parents of a child in The School That Sacked Me to consider. Who knows this might afford us some worthwhile leads or thoughts towards a lead which might get us started on the real preparations for setting up an alternative.
You can see how my optimism keeps me going!
And the sun in which I lounged this afternoon!
Needless to say I weathered such uncharacteristically realistic assessments of my linguistic ability and by the end of the two hours (without a break) of relentless Spanish teaching I was bubbling with belief in my ability to communicate. Somehow.
The amount of learning that I have to complete before the next lesson is daunting, if not impossible, but this is the month when I am going to make a more than determined effort to try and understand the use of the two different verbs that the Spanish have for ‘to be.’ If I get anywhere with that conundrum then I will assay to comprehend the differences which distinguish the use of the words ‘bien’ and ‘bueno’.
The Sony e-book reader continues to give pleasure, not only because it is easy to read, but also because it affords me the opportunity to be ever more pretentious in the growing selection of books which I am able to put into its memory. There are now 162 books which, on just one electronic page in the index range from The Koran to Macbeth by way of Voltaire, Wilfred Owen and
William Harrison Ainsworth’s “Old Saint Paul’s!” And there is still room left for more. Now that I have discovered http://manybooks.net/authors.php as a website the number of books available for download has expanded interestingly. Of that web site I have to say that it offers what it says in its title!I have yet to buy any of the books which comprise my electronic library but I keep telling myself there is a whole wealth of past literature in English that I haven’t touched, that’s out of copyright and available in electronic form.
I suppose the real triumph will be when I actually download a book in Spanish. And enjoy reading it! I think that is some time away!
Meanwhile there is my dinner next Saturday with very disaffected parents of a child in The School That Sacked Me to consider. Who knows this might afford us some worthwhile leads or thoughts towards a lead which might get us started on the real preparations for setting up an alternative.
You can see how my optimism keeps me going!
And the sun in which I lounged this afternoon!
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