Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Workin' on the Spanish

In the past week I've felt so much better about how Spanish is going. Amazing what a difference feeling better physically makes on language acquisition!

This afternoon I decided to write a paragraph using verbs in pretérito y pretérito imperfecto. In the past I'd write it in English and then translate it into Spanish. But people, I realized part way through the first sentence that I was automatically doing it in Spanish!!!

I stopped and did a little happy dance ☺

For anyone who has learned a language, you know what a HUGE step this is and can rejoice with me. For everyone else, trust me, this is worth celebrating!

This doesn't mean I'm "there" yet. I have so far to go that I try not to think about it because that simply overwhelms and paralyzes me. I just enjoy and rejoice in each baby step of progress.

While I'm in class the hubby runs errands, doing any shopping or bill paying or whatever, and every day for over a week I've had him check our post office box but still no package from the daughter. She sent some things in a large envelope three weeks ago. I can't imagine anyone wanting the contents (cocoa powder, some seasoning packets, a book on worship and some nylon scrubby things for the kitchen) so I'm just hoping the delay is due to the holidays. I've just had such a hankering for vegies and Ranch dip. The original dry Ranch dressing mix is one of the things in the package so you can see why I anxiously await its arrival ☺ The book on worship is hubby's birthday gift, said event occurring last Monday.

Oh, and progress report on the bed: hubby picked up some parts he needed this morning in order to fix his planer. That done, he's back to working on the bed platform. A short while ago he finished planing the pieces of wood scavenged from pallets we used in the move.

He was so busy with that, and I was so immersed in Spanish that we both forgot the green beans simmering on the stove. Suddenly I caught a whiff of that awful scorched scent so common from the early days of our marriage. I salvaged about half the beans; trying not to be sad about the other half. We do love us some Southern style green beans -- cooked to death with smoked pork. Forget al dente when it comes to beans! There's nothing like beans so soft they melt in your mouth, and flavored with good old fashioned fat.

Hmmmmm, maybe I could write a paragraph about Southern food for my tutor. Now how would I say fatback in Spanish...

3 comments:

Debbie said...

Good job on the Spanish. What an accomplishment. As you know, English is still a struggle for me even though I've never lived anywhere else. I hope your package comes soon. When you gotta have the Ranch...

riTa Koch said...

No luck finding fatback nor sowbelly in wordreference.com :(
I DO KNOW what a great éxito it is for you to automatically use pretérito e imperfecto!!!!! Even some teachers of the language cannot do that!

Skoots1moM said...

good job!!