Thank goodness for the cold I’ve had. It made me relax, stop and start to enjoy the days here.
While it has been raining in Barcelona and Granollers – it has been sunny and dry here in Cornwall.
Colder of course – but dry!
I’ve been trying to speak Catalan every day but it’s shocking how strong is the pull back to English.
And when I do force my brain to engage in another language (it feels like forcing – like I am pulling a hungry dog away from the discarded sandwich he wants to eat) it just spouts out a mixture of Catalan and Castellano and sometimes French in a sort of sulky ” there you are then, any old foreign word will do!”
A man in a cafe yesterday spoke to us in Castellano. How long did he live in Spain? – three months!!!!!
He sounded very good to me – oh God why can’t I learn quicker?
And my dear partner? He too is speaking fluently and understanding almost all he hears. Yes he makes mistakes and continues to use he/she rather randomly but he doesn’t stop to struggle with almost every verbal tense he needs. Nor does he forget the words for teaspoon, saucepan, wheel……
In a years time will I be fluent? I am beginning to doubt it. I know the answer is Speak Speak Speak.
And most important SPEAK IN CATALAN or PARLA CATALA !
Oh, I so hear you. Next year, you won’t be fluent, sorry that sounds harsh, but the only people I know who claim fluency aren’t. You will however by much better than you are now.
Other things….verbs in English are SUPER easy. Once you have mastered the word order changes for questions and negatives, they are SIMPLE…indeed the language changed dramatically a long time ago to simplify communication. Verbs in Catalan are much more complicated as they require so much more conjugation. Random he/she is typical, though it isn’t usually random, but rather reflects the perceived feminineness of something that is a feminine noun in the maternal language etc, some of it is random though and some pronunciation difficulties with he from a spanish mouth…..
learning languages, ho hum. I speak almost no Catalan all summer when we go back, don’t sweat it. The first year I made all sorts of mad promises, study, read, listen etc etc etc. Now I just enjoy the libraries and radio and ease of speaking, then come back and struggle again, every year it is less of a struggle though. Every year.
And pronoms febles…let’s not talk about those, m’kay?
You’ll slip back into it when you return, but whether you’ll ever be fluent… I’m sure I won’t be. I’ll get better every year, but fluency is another matter I think.