Spanish Lesson Plan

Your Fio is settling down into the study of el espanol for real now. Yes, she's actually going to learn some verbs forms.  Her initial lista contains diez verbos--eat, drink, come, go, sit, sleep, drive, stop, and the two forms of be--all in the present tense, with their infinitives and imperatives as part of the package. (Comer, beber, venir, ir, sentarse, dormir, manejar, dejar,  estar, ser, if you're interesado.)

Wish Fio well.

Catching You Up on El Color de la Pasion

Fiorella doubled down on el espanol yesterday. Or rather, tripled down. During the afternoon, she posted two pages of verb tenses for ser ("to be") on the wall above her desk. Later, about twenty minutes before El Color de la Pasion came on, she played with Duolingo on her phone. Then she topped the evening off by watching the telenovela. All the prep work was worth it--not that there's anything subtle going on, but Fio caught a few more words and phrases. To bring you up to date, Tia (Aunt) Rebeca, the villainess, has been tossed out of her luxurious casa (home) by sweet Lucia, who turned into a spitfire when she learned that Rebeca, out of jealousy, had shoved her older sister, Lucia's mother, over the balcony when Lucia was a baby. Then Daniela, who is embarazada (pregnant) broke it to Milagros,who had tried to set up an assignation between her and her son Marcelo, that Marcelo was not the father of the child. The hour ended as Brigita, who had put her homeless friend Rebeca up for the night, walked into the guest bedroom to witness her despicable husband, Amador, groping and kissing a struggling Rebeca.

And those were just the highlights.

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.)