Fiorella's Telenovela

Fiorella is so excited! Her faithful watching of El Color de la Pasion is beginning to pay off--she's actually understanding some of what is being said. Almost enough, in fact to follow the twisted and tangled plotlines.

There's a difference between being able to read and speak a language and being able to understand a language. With a five-year background in Latin, Fio has always approached new languages analytically, concentrating on how to read them, but with Spanish, she is concentrating on understanding the spoken word, leaving formal training till later.

Fiorella would love to tell you more about her language acquisition program, but you'll have to excuse her because El Color de la Pasion is about to come on. To bring you up to date, Marcelo has finally been sprung from jail, Lucia has discovered her stepmother caused the death of her padre and Marcelo's hermano, Daniela appears to be recovering from her near-fatal accidente automovilistico, and everyone is weeping or kissing or plotting or screaming. Adios for now!

Co-mingling

Bon jour, mia bella! Como esta usted sevodna? Neenu teluguloo maaTlaaDagalaru. Koennen Sie diese Sprache sprechen? Zdai chen!

Ave atque vale,
Fio, who's messing with you

Languages,Languages, Languages

Has Fio told you she's trying to learn Spanish by semi-immersion? She started by watching Univision, a Spanish-language station, every night to absorb the 's sounds and rhythm of the language, and now, with the help of Google Translator, she is trying to get everything in the house labeled so wherever she looks, she'll see the Spanish word for it. She's planning to post a color chart too.  And she's trying to build the habit of substituting Spanish words for English words when she can.

Of course, most of the words she's learning now are basic nouns, but she's pretty sure she can learn prepositions from context. And she already has a head start on pronouns because she lives in Texas. The verbs will be more problematical, but Fio will handle them in time if she keeps at it. That's what immersion is all about.

And just think--if Fio can master Spanish, she can bring her Russian back up to speed.  And her Latin.  And then there's Italian--and German--and Telugu--and Mandarin--and every other language Fio has ever wanted to speak. (You'll notice Fio left off French.  She could read it quite well at one time, but has no interest in learning how to mispronounce it at this point in her life.)



 

Opportunity

Fiorella has long lamented her lack of opportunity to practice her fast-fading language skills, but today she struck oil. Bangaladesh called.

It rolled right off her tongue, the Russian she'd learned lo these many years ago.  Nothing complicated--"Speak in Russian, please;  I don't understand you; I don't speak English.  Do you speak Russian?"  But before she could start reciting Pushkin, her caller hung up.

Fio hopes she wasn't marked off the list.  She still has bits and pieces of about ten other languages to go.  Immo vero in senatum venit!

Leaking Languages

Fiorella awoke with words and phrases popping out of her mouth--words and phrases from languages she studied many years ago, languages she thought had totally fled her brain.  She's been doing that a lot lately, spouting Russian, German, Telugu, Latin, even French, Spanish, and Italian, which she had somehow managed to maneuver through on her own, plus her bits and pieces of Mandarin and an exclamation in Hindi.

It figures.  Remember the four cornerstones of Fio's personal world are music, art, literature, and . . . . languages.

Now to check around Georgetown and see if anyone is running a Russian review class.  Yeah, fat chance.

Multi-Lingual Greetings

Keefik! Hola! Ciao! Chao! Guten Morgen! Preevyet! Ave! Comesta! Nee hau! NuhmuhskaaruhmuhnDee! Nuhmustey. Bon jour! 

Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Latin, Fillipino, Mandarin, Telugu, Hindi, and French.

As Fiorella has often said, she knows just enough in far too many languages to get her in trouble anywhere she goes. Sigh--if only she knew more.

Imperfect Parents

Fiorella's parents wanted their children to strive for the best, but they also wanted them not to be big-headed.

Thus, when Fio came home elated because she'd made 98.5 on one of Miss Osborn's quite challenging Latin tests and Miss O had written  "YOU ARE GOOD!" across the top of the page, Fio's father looked at her, smiled, and said "Why didn't you make 100?" And when he and her mother visited newly-wed Fio and Husband in their little duplex that Fio had spent days cleaning and decorating, all he noticed was the dust on the rungs of the rocker.  And when Husband made a room-to-room narrated video of Fiorella's lavish Christmas decorations, Dad let her know, with a smile, that Husband did a better job of narrating than she did.  What the heck!  She was the one who'd done all the work, who'd invested a whole month to hanging wreaths, bells, birds, swags, and ornaments!!

Why do these things still sting?  Fio knows her father loved her.

More to the point, what sort of dumb, unthinking, or mistaken things did Fio do to her own kids?

Remembering Elor Osborn

In preparation for tying a red bow around its cotton-stuffed girth, I polished up the Indian elephant Miss Osborn had sent me for Christmas years ago, when I was in grad school.  Elor Osborn--may her name be revered--taught Latin at Waco High, my alma mater. She required  a lot out of me, more than I realized I could do.  She also put up with a lot of nonsense from me, which is part and parcel of the Fiorella package.  And when I made Phi Beta Kappa at UT, she paid for my pin.

I think Miss Osborn would be happy with how I turned out.  When I die, I want that elephant to go with me as grave goods.

Happiness

Let's make one thing clear: Fio has been published since she was five, when her art appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal.  Later, she wrote for school publications--her elementary school newspaper, her high school literary booklet, Latin booklets.  She put in a stint as editor of the state Latin publication, had some poetry published, and wrote a doctoral dissertation. She self-pubbed more  little booklets, wrote for the American-Statesman, for her own neighborhood newspaper, and for local magazines.  She had more poetry published, plus a short story.

But she's never had a full-length novel published till now.

WHAT THE HEART WANTS--on Amazon, published by Forever Yours, Hachette Book Group.

Uno, zwei, tri, muuDu, quinque, cinq, sei

Hello, one and all, and especially you physical therapists that told Fiorella not to blog about you. What a challenge to hurl at her.

No, this isn't a scandalous tell-all.  Fiorella liked the therapists who worked with her, and she benefited from the treatments--in fact, now that her sessions are over, she's actually doing some of the exercises at home. But Fio does have one suggestion. It would make better use of your clients' time if you turned off the television and suggested they learn to count their reps in various foreign languages. Fiorella herself reviewed Spanish, German, Russian, Telugu, Latin, and French (sort of--not too good at pronouncing French) during her time on the table.  And the PT big dog, Nicole, kindly added Italian to her repertoire.

If those seven languages aren't enough, there's always Mandarin. Fio's already learned 1,2, 3--ee (high), aar (low and rising up), ssun(high to low), although she needs to read up on Mandarin phonemes before she can give you the exact pronunciation of that last one.

Catching up with Fio

Fiorella rewrote yesterday's blog because it didn't flow right when she reviewed it that evening.  She's like that--a serial revisionist.  Anything worth doing is worth doing better.  Stay tuned.  This blog will probably get a revision too.
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Fio's numeral-reviewing project in seven languages got bogged down somewhere along the line so she decided to work on just 1-10 instead of 1-20.  She can rattle off those  numbers in Spanish, German, and Russian again, and is working on Telugu.  Latin and French should be easy enough once it's their turn.  But, now Fio wants to add Mandarin to the list.  After all, she has an appointment with her Chinese dentist next month.
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Husband and Fiorella started putting together an art desk last weekend, but they screwed in the center crossbar upside down and haven't had the time to fix it.  Ah well, there are seventeen more hours left in this weekend.