Learning Spanish the Friendly Way

Fiorella is quite satisfied with the language-learning set-up she's put together. She watches a Spanish language soap opera five hours a week and thus observes the language in context. It also helps her pick up rhythm, accent, and cultural behaviors. Her telenovelas are backed up with a Spanish textbook, a "Spanish in Ten Minutes A Day" book, Google's "Translator," and crib notes in Spanish taped on everything in the house.  Most important, though, are friends and relatives who speak Spanish: Rachel Sonntag, Raquel Luna, Jane Perrine, Fernando Barriga, Patricia Carando, Anne Marie Valerio, and the many kind waiters, sales people, and strangers whom Fio has imposed on.

Linguistic training and a good ear have also helped. When one has learned bits and pieces of German, French, Russian, and Spanish as a child, then studied Latin for five years, then added a semester of German, two semesters of Hindi, two of Sanskrit, three years of Telugu, and passed a French reading exam after only six weeks of study, you can bet the mind involved has figured out how to learn languages.

Looking back, Fio doesn't think the standard classroom would have worked for her. On line programs certainly didn't--she found them repetitive, boring, and not at all related to her life--but the combination of telenovelas, textbooks, Translator, crib notes, and friends and relatives seems to be doing the trick.

Wish Fio well.

How Fiorella Lives Her Life

Fiorella had a wonderfully social day yesterday lunching with friend Jane Perrine, then driving into Austin to visit with friend Deborah Radel. Politics was the topic of the day and both of her friends were so clever that Fio laughed herself silly. Jane fights the good fight by contacting her representatives and contributing to various liberal causes, while Deborah is looking forward to the next one. Empowerment is addictive.
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Fio has started exploring the unknown territories of the five-acre wooded tract that she and Husband live on. Yesterday she discovered a charming dell off the side of the north driveway that Fernando, her yardman, who also likes discovering things, had obviously mowed. She also found the north branch of the dry creek that edges three sides of the property. but she didn't go too far because that area is unfenced and she didn't want to get lost. Again.
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The last day for El Color de la Pasion is Monday, March 6, and all its plot threads are rapidly being resolved. Rebeca is homeless, Amador is in jail, the guy who raped Tene is in jail, Nora has committed suicide, Nazario was visited by the spirit of his late wife who tells him to marry Norita (Fio thinks),Rafaela is back with a chastened Milagros, Lucia and Marcelo are engaged (again), and Lucia will be sole owner of the art tile factory, Your Fio plans to buy the whole series and watch it again. It's a great way to learn Spanish, she picks up drama pointers from it that she can use in her books, and watching it before she goes to bed ensures a good night's sleep.

Hippity-hoppity

Chocolate is Fiorella's crack, especially if it's shaped like a long-eared rabbit.  She can usually resist Hershey bars and even bypass chocolate chunks, but rabbits--chocolate rabbits!

Bunny-wise, though, it's been a bad year for Fio.  She crowed about  buying six marked-down Russell Stover chocolate rabbits at HEB, only to discover later that they had crispies in them, which means Fio could not consider them to be true Easter bunnies.  After Son had taken the crispie critters off to work with him the next day, she went out and bought another set of chocolate rabbits, at Walgreen's this time, stowing them in the trunk of her car while she spent a pleasant hour visiting with Friend Jane.  When she got home, even though the day was cold, four of the rabbits had melted.

Yesterday. she tried Walgreen's again, but all the Russell Stover chocolate rabbits were gone.

Oh, well.  She'll try Target and HEB tomorrow.  Wish her luck.  Maybe she needs a rabbit's foot.