Language

El Clàssic or Yet another football post

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

Tomorrow evening there is a football match between Barcelona and Madrid. It’s called El Clasico or El Clàssic in Catalan, and is the name given to any match between these two teams. It is one of the most watched football matches in the world – hundreds of millions of people glued to their TV screens, as well as the lucky ones who are actually there to see it live.
As I’ve said before, I don’t know much about football, but it is easier to learn about it when it grabs your attention like this does.
To show how ignorant I am in general I will embarrass myself by admitting that I didn’t know there was a  Barça/Madrid match tomorrow night until I just saw it on TV.  Then I noticed something interesting – I felt nervous!  I realised it makes me anxious thinking about it and I know that when I am watching the game there will be butterflies in my stomach.
Weird isn’t it?
Five Things I Have Learnt About El Clàssic
1/   Real Madrid has more supporters in Spain than Barça does while Barça has more support in Europe. Worldwide, Real Madrid appears to win the number of supporters competition with over 228 million fans according to some studies. Perhaps if you keep expanding your horizon to include the universe,  Barça would come out top!
2/   Barça has won more Classic matches than Real Madrid.  Barça 103 – Real Madrid 90 (I’ve never seen them lose which is one reason for my pre-match anxiety)
3/   More players have switched from Barça to Madrid than the other way around with 17 going to the Spanish capital and only 4 coming to Catalunya. I wonder why? More money offered by Madrid?  Barça preferring to get new players elsewhere?
4/   The other rivalry is between the team coaches – Guardiola and Mourinho.  They share a first name but for Guardiola it is the Catalan version Josep/Pep and Mourinho is known as Jose.  In English? Joseph or Joe.

5/  When they speak in the after match discussion it is impressive how easily Guardiola slips between languages but I have just read that Morinho too speaks English, Italian, Spanish, French as well as Portuguese.  Guardiola speaks English, French, Italian, Spanish and Catalan so in this match there is a draw!

Listening to Catalan in the early hours

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

I was up early this morning to take out Bonnie and Blue before the shoppers start to walk down the street and it gets embarassing for me to be out there in my badly hidden nightie. Also Blue has developed the habit of peeing as soon as we get out the front door – or sometimes worse!  And thirdly our Resident Adolescent was out at a disco last night and expected home around 6.30am which I knew would wake the dogs up and perhaps lead to puddles in the living room.
So….after wandering around the square for a while with two sleepy dogs I came back and made a cup of tea and opened the computer to pass the time while waiting for two teenagers to get home.
Where do you go when you want to look at something on the internet but aren’t sure what?
Youtube perhaps?  I’ve just been watching some videos by a man who makes films of himself speaking Catalan and Spanish…. and English sometimes which is the language he is learning. He’s called Oscar and he sits in his home talking to the camera in a really informal and informative way. I like these videos because he speaks very clearly and he just chats about interesting things like language learning or problems faced by people learning a new language. It’s all very relaxed and a great way to practise listening skills. Sometimes he goes out for a walk with his dog in the Catalan hills and chats to his iphone as he goes. There’s something very appealing about him and if you are learning Catalan or Spanish I’d really recommend finding him on YouTube and subscribing to his channel.  Then you’ll automatically get sent his new video.
This is not the most interesting one he has made but I put it here as an introduction to Oscar and it’s short and topical! He speaks English, Catalan and Spanish in a brief Christmas greeting.  Click here to watch.
Hope you enjoy him!

summer school

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

Today I took Duna for a walk down by the river. We met a new dog, one of the tiny variety that is so common here and for once Duna let it sniff her without raising her lip and snapping. You can never tell with these small ones – she really doesn’t like some of them but others pass some secret test and she will chase them around for a while. Here they are at the back of this picture getting to know each other

And here is Duna with the horrible flats in the background but….look at those glorious flowers!

I talked to the owner  – in Castellano this time. When I asked ‘Com es diu?’ (what is he called?) he answered   ‘Se llama Nury’.
It’s complicated like that here. You can’t be sure who speaks what until the conversation begins. And sometimes people who actually are Catalan change to Castellano because they think I will prefer it. Oh it makes life interesting!
In the summer school we did automatic drawings and also drawing with the non-dominant hand. To help us get more into the Miro world of imagination and dreams. I led this exercise which is the first time I’ve done that and managed to do it in Catalan.  The language wasn’t the problem, it was more getting 6 children to stop chatting and asking questions. They loved doing the drawings of moon and suns and stars and birds with their eyes shut and were amazed to see what they had done without all that intense ‘trying to get it right’ energy.
Then it was the rehearsal and it was wonderful to see them getting nervous behind the scenes then coming out and playing their parts, acting out a little story about Miro.  Songs, dressing up, props that we made, dancing, drama, the final bows.   All in one week – to my surprise it comes together and creates magic.
Tomorrow is the show. The audience are the parents and we are there to whisper prompts. No-one minds if things go awry. But it absolutely is the real thing – the nerves, the adrenalin, the buzz., the applause.

I will let you know how it goes.

Reading Aloud

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

I’m getting faster now. After the trip to the library I read this one almost without putting it down.
Carme Riera is a good writer and L’Estiu De L’Anglès is a black comedy – actually scary at times – about a woman who is desperate to learn English and goes to stay with a very eccentric teacher in an isolated house in England.  Soon she is speaking it well but only because her life depends on it!!

This by the way was my birthday breakfast in Estartit – eaten slowly while I read the last part of the book out loud. Apologies to those who hate to see a book lying like this – I’m too old to stop now!

Immersion

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

For a week I only spoke Catalan at home. And in the shops and on the street with the other dog walkers that I met.  I read the newspaper in Catalan and listened to iCatfm and watched  tv3 which is the Catalan public television station.
Yes, there was a little English – phones calls to the UK, coffees with a friend in Granollers, and writing here.
Also I watched BBC1 a couple of times – there was a drama on for three nights which I got hooked into although I missed part three because of the football!!! (anyone know what the mystery was about?)
Oh and we went to see La Red Social at Granollers film club  – it’s the film about Facebook which of course was in English but had subtitles in Castellano.

So…how was it?

  • I enjoyed it and didn’t seem to be speaking any less
  • I started actually using the grammar we are learning in school – the subjunctive and past tenses and imperatives. ‘Passa’m la sal, sisplau’, ‘he estat 20 minuts corren al gimnàs’ i ‘desitjo una casa que tingui un jardi per les meves gosses’
  • I realised I haven’t got a handle on the use of pronouns yet
  • I still thought in English but I didn’t need to translate slowly before speaking. Some things seem to be more automatic. 
  • Words I didn’t know that I knew started to come to the surface
  • I tried to trust what was coming out of my mouth – sometimes it was wrong!
  • I felt a bit frustrated with how hard it is to understand people talking at a normal speed
  • The biggest thing to come out of it was a boost in confidence about speaking and learning Catalan. I surprised myself with how much I know.

So I have decided to continue for another week! thanks for supporting me

Also, thanks to all who have asked about the drawings – yes I am doing them on an application called whiteboard on my mobile phone. There would be more but I have had trouble saving them so have lost a few but hopefully will get this sorted in the next week. Must be that Spring energy – needing to do something different and new!