Miss M’s Spanish

From David:

With the benefit of what Nana and Nathalie (our Columbian au pair) did, M seemed to gain some confidence and contact with Spanish, willing to give speaking a try (though for the first couple months she was here, 50% of her vocabulary seemed to be “para”  - “Flor… para este party for us… para dresso and para… para this.”

With Nathalie (and a big turtle)

One of my (K's) favorite pictures of my mom (aka Nana).
This is from a Victoria Day celebration,
which we do instead of Mother's Day.

I remember how hard it was to make any progress when I was taking German for just a couple times a week (Mein hut der hat drei ecken...) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uewpJeO2--4)

Well, 3 months in, M entered stage right in the theater of Spanish at what I would call: Act 1 – I’m Starting To Get It - where she could understand enough words to get the gist of some simple sentences.  If you were to ask her, “Donde esta la mesa?” (Where is the table?) she had about a 50/50 shot of understanding.  But it’s clear she got enough contact with some high frequency words at school… like ‘birthday party’, ‘sit down’, and ‘it’s time for us to do the cha-cha’… (not really on the last one).

We’ve passed the 5-month mark, and we’re starting to be surprised at some of the phrases she has been tossing out – in particular when she talks with Flor. Not being fluent in Spanish myself, it sounds pretty impressive… though sometimes it sounds suspiciously like: “Me llamo Inigo Montoya.  Tu mataste a mi padre.  Preparate a morir.” (background for people who didn't grow up with Keturah: this was a sibling's response to any question from the Spanish 1 teacher – “My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.” - See reference to movie ‘The Princess Bride’ - I’m guessing it was an effective way to deter being called upon.)

We’re looking forward to seeing her continued progress as we all continue to learn the ways of Español (guitar music in background – cha cha cha).  Look out Dora – here comes Miss M.

Ready to ride!

DP

And we continue to learn the language of faith - even trickier than Spanish.