The number of tenses we, in our Spanish class, are
supposed to know has now reached some form of critical mass. God knows, I am unsure enough of the names
for tenses in English let alone in a foreign language. And let me tell you that you cannot be as sloppy
in the formation of tenses in Spanish as you can in English. You have to be exact. Verb endings indicate who or what is
happening without the use of pronouns.
So your listeners can tell. Or,
of course, not.
Well, we have recently had a test. A written test. I experienced some sort of brain freeze when
I took this one and what little knowledge I had of various verb endings fled
from my consciousness like die-hard Conservatives from social justice!
The reality of the disaster of the test was not the
worst of my fears. Our teacher goes in
for what you could call refreshing honesty or horrific public
denunciation. During one soul-searing
lesson last year it rapidly became apparent that she was going to read out our
results openly for the rest of the class to hear. As there were fewer verbs involved in that
debacle I had more chance of passing, but it was a damn near thing!
This time I thought that the “revelations” of
ineptitude were going to be confined to a rapid distribution and collection of
our finished papers just before we disappeared for the weekend. I gazed at my paper in blank incomprehension
(in much the same way in which I wrote it) and handed it back in, relieved that
the humiliation was personal and private.
Imagine my horror today when I saw the pile of papers
reappear on the desk of the teacher. My
horror increased as the teacher berated us (yet again) for failing to use
accents on interrogatives. This, we were
told, was basic. We did it last
year. It is something that we MUST know. She then singled out a selection of students,
by name, and asked them why the accents had been omitted! Wearing an expression of what I hoped was
optimistic contrition I gazed at the teacher and waited for the Name of Shame
to pinned to my shrinking confidence. As
I knew that in past tests I had used French words rather than their Spanish
equivalents, and that my use of accents was always more impressionistic than
accurate that the raised eyebrow of pedagogic incredulity would arch in my
direction.
But it didn’t.
My paper was given back without condemnation! I know that in a perfect narrative world, I
would now be telling you that in fact I got one of the highest marks in the
class and silly me for ever doubting my linguistic ability. Alas, this is and was not the case.
I looked through my paper and whole sections had the
mark that the British Eurovision song entry gets from the more unfashionable
fragments of the late empire of the USSR.
I had however managed to garner unexpected marks though luck rather than
ability and my written prose piece was enough to get me a scrape-by pass. I said nothing and showed my paper to nobody
and have resolved to Get To Grips With Verbs.
I do have a plan.
Of sorts. It amounts to cobbling
together information from a selection of books that I have in a final attempt
to get the forms into my head.
I have to admit that sometimes the circumstances in
which you use these Spanish verbs sounds like a selection from the screenplay
of The Paleface, starring the right wing, yet supremely talented, Bob Hope. I mean that bit in the film where he (a
confirmed townie) is given advice when he goes out to take on the gunslinger in
the Wild West. Eventually all the advice
gets mixed up and he mutters to himself a Surrealistic amalgam of the helpful
hints.
Well, it’s the same thing with verbs. If you are an English speaker then you will usually
find that, after having spoken, you will have had not a moment’s difficulty in
being able to have used the most complicated verb formations in normal
conversation. Rather like the
grammatical form of that last sentence, whose translation into Spanish is not
something I can contemplate with any degree of equanimity.
I swear that we recently had an explanation given to
us in Spanish about the use of one of the past tenses which went something like
this: “This is the tense that you use for something in the past which happened
before something else and which was an action completed in the past but not in
the distant past.” I admit that I might
be making some of that up, but I am not making this one up, I am copying it
from a text book: “This tense is used for an action or state of being that
occurred in the past and lasted for a
certain length of time prior to another past action.” [Their italics] I mean what chance do I have!
Whinging, however will decline no verbs, so the
Desperate Plan for Linguistic Fluency must / has to / will have to / be put in
place with some dispatch - or at least before the next test so that I can boost
my overall mark! We were also told today
that our particular examination has a pass mark of 65% and not the lowly 40%
that we have been working with heretofore.
Something to think about.
As indeed is the continuing situation of chaos in
Catalonia.
On Saturday I went into Barcelona and joined a million
people protesting about the imprisonment of political prisoners created by the
government of Rajoy and PP (the systemically corrupt party he “heads”(sic.)
Rajoy reminds me of the late and completely unlamented
Dr. (sic.) Ian Paisley. Like that
reverend bigot the only word that Rajoy seems to favour is “No!” Rajoy’s idea of conciliation is police
violence. How much the barbaric police
“action” cost during the election in Catalonia on October 1st has
now been declared a “State Secret”. I
wonder why? Rajoy referred to the
President of Catalonia as a liar as his way of encouraging dialogue, Rajoy’s
speech is always in absolutes, and there is no room for compromise unless the
other side capitulates entirely.
Even the Brexiteer liars in Britain seem to be
amenable to some sort of compromise; perhaps they could talk to their sister
party in Spain and get them to recognize that politics is the art of the
possible!
Probably not.
Never mind, I can always turn to the Imperfecto de Indicativo or the Pretérito or even the Pluscamperfecto de subjunctivo to take
my mind off it all!
Alternatively there is the second volume of the third level
Art course in the Open University to read that arrived this afternoon - and that
that book has pretty pictures in it too!
And let’s face it who could seriously turn away from a volume entitled, “Art,
Commerce and Colonialism 1600-1800”? I for one certainly can’t.
