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in ascending order of difficulty:
Aug. 14th, 2008 08:26 pm- reading Spanish in books (I found Michael Marshall Smith´s Only Forward! Yay! Reading a book you already know inside-out in a different language is a great way to pick stuff up. It´s just called Ciudad, City, though, which is well boring)
- understanding clearly spoken Spanish
- speaking awful Spanish with the articles and genders all magimixed
- reading casual, dashed-off email Spanish with no punctuation, of which more later
- understanding fast/slangy/muttered spoken Spanish
- understanding Spanish on the phone
- ....when there´s a crap laggy line because you´re in a noisy netcafe and you failed to understand something in the person´s last email which said to phone them the previous day because by now they would be deep in the jungle and it was highly unlikely their phone would work
- ....and trying to communicate with said person when you´re floundering and self-conscious because you feel like a fool for misreading the email and you´re trying to make a good impression but you´re just a blundering blob of a foreign tourist and you´re sweating buckets and having a sugar crash because you didn´t have lunch and this would be a rather nervous-making conversation even if it was in English
This was what did for my plans of yesterday evening. I was supposed to be going to stay at the house of a local shaman (a thoroughly modern one, with his email and cell phone). It may still happen next week, but seriously, this last couple of days absolutely nothing has gone as planned.
( For example... )
This is all summary-ish, no atmosphere, it doesn´t really convey anything, but that´s what happens when you let the blog pipe clog up for several days and then unblock it suddenly. Meanwhile, in the ordinary world, there are things like house bills and the A-level results (which ugh, but I won´t discuss in an unlocked post). I have to address these things but it´s very hard to climb back into the mindset of stationary me. Well, I had best roll up my sleeves and do it and then head off to the jungle with a light heart.
- understanding clearly spoken Spanish
- speaking awful Spanish with the articles and genders all magimixed
- reading casual, dashed-off email Spanish with no punctuation, of which more later
- understanding fast/slangy/muttered spoken Spanish
- understanding Spanish on the phone
- ....when there´s a crap laggy line because you´re in a noisy netcafe and you failed to understand something in the person´s last email which said to phone them the previous day because by now they would be deep in the jungle and it was highly unlikely their phone would work
- ....and trying to communicate with said person when you´re floundering and self-conscious because you feel like a fool for misreading the email and you´re trying to make a good impression but you´re just a blundering blob of a foreign tourist and you´re sweating buckets and having a sugar crash because you didn´t have lunch and this would be a rather nervous-making conversation even if it was in English
This was what did for my plans of yesterday evening. I was supposed to be going to stay at the house of a local shaman (a thoroughly modern one, with his email and cell phone). It may still happen next week, but seriously, this last couple of days absolutely nothing has gone as planned.
( For example... )
This is all summary-ish, no atmosphere, it doesn´t really convey anything, but that´s what happens when you let the blog pipe clog up for several days and then unblock it suddenly. Meanwhile, in the ordinary world, there are things like house bills and the A-level results (which ugh, but I won´t discuss in an unlocked post). I have to address these things but it´s very hard to climb back into the mindset of stationary me. Well, I had best roll up my sleeves and do it and then head off to the jungle with a light heart.
