Don't Skimp On the Sex Hotel

In class 21 we were treated to an account of David's time spent with his girlfriend at a local "telo (sex hotel)." Apparently, like with a travel agency, this is something that is better to pay a little extra for up front in order to improve your chances of having an enjoyable time. David elected for the "budget" option and got what sounds like a torture chamber in return. Bueno, entonces... Learn Spanish used this unfortunate situation as a framework for learning how to describe places and objects. There were lots of good around-the-house vocabulary (including three words for sink). David and Jimena played a game in which they each took turns describing an object with the other person trying to guess what it was. Of course, this led to the very predictable outcome of David describing a "long, hard, plastic object that gives you pleasure," Jimena getting grossed out and yelling at David for being so crude, and David saying, "What? I was talking about a toothbrush." This took the usual high school/college humor down to middle school.

There was also some nice teaching points on comparisons - tan is always used with como, and mas/menos with de. This is just another example of something I mix up when engrossed in a conversation and trying to speak quickly.

Then it was on to superlatives. Although this was review for me, it was quite timely given my recent conversation with my son. He recently asked me, when crossing the street, what the difference between rápido and rapidísimo is. When I explained that the -ísimo basically added "really/very" to the word, he began a long verbal experiment that entailed adding -ísimo to every word he could think of. After a while it became quite annoyingísimo, but hey, he's learning.

Quick update: I've used ya, acabar de, and probarse in conversation with good results. My Spanish seems to be progressing nicely.