Getting Possessive

Class 12 was a review of week 2. David began the class by using the possible separation of his parents to try to get Jimena to feel sorry for him. As expected, Jimena didn't bite. After that it was on to the review. Again, the review was a nice mixture of old and new concepts, verbs, and vocabulary. I won't spend much time talking about the review of old concepts other than saying it does help reinforce things.

The quick snippets of teaching were quite helpful in this lesson. I learned that possessive pronouns are not used when talking about clothes or body parts. I know I have made this mistake many times talking to patients in the hospital or talking to my kids about getting dressed. This is a great illustration were language learning programs (like Rosetta Stone) which use context and repetition to teach and enforce grammar rules can come up short. I have taken five years of formal Spanish and spent 6 weeks working with Rosetta Stone without picking up on this rule. In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't make a huge a huge deal when trying to get your point across but just doesn't sound polished to native Spanish speakers.

I also learned the meaning of a word I have been coming across quite often in the local newspaper, Clarín, lately - "quizás (maybe/perhaps)." As part of my attempt to improve my Spanish I have been trying to buy the local Spanish language paper a couple of times per week. When I first arrived here two months ago, I found myself reading the paper with a dictionary in hand. Having to stop every five seconds to look up words I didn't know made reading the paper a chore. Now I find myself not needing the dictionary at all (although I will often ask my wife what a word here or there means) and have come to enjoy my time sitting down with the paper on weekends.

As an illustration of my improved comprehension, my wife and I were watching highlights of this weekend's Premiere League soccer matches, including the Manchester United vs. Manchester City game in which Carlos Tevez (who plays on the Argentine National Team) was facing his old team for the first time since a recent trade. I was able to tell my wife about the new billboard Manchester City erected in the town center and about the comments Manchester United's coach had for Tevez. Her response: "You got all of that from reading the newspaper in Spanish? Good for you."

Needless to say I'm feeling better about my comprehension; just need to keep working on my speaking.

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