Sunday, September 02, 2018

There’s not much to report this evening, either. But I have an unusually rich crop of television ahead which should last me well into the week, and should certainly advance my knitting this evening. I finished the first Kirigami sleeve last night, distributed the stitches onto waste yarn as instructed,  and am well embarked on the ribbing of the second.

Somehow, the pleasure of speeding around a wrist is not so acute this time.

I had my Italian lesson via Skype from Rome this morning – not quite as stressful as last week, because Skype behaved better, but it still leaves me mentally exhausted for much of the day. I grumbled at one point about verbs, and Federika said that when she was at school they had to write pages and pages of vado, vai, va, andiamo, andate, vanno, present indicative, etc.

I don’t remember that in Detroit we were ever drilled on what would be the English equivalent: I go, I went, I have gone; I see, I saw, I have seen, etc. Although mistakes in this area are common (at least in this country) among highly intelligent people who for that reason (the mistakes) have some avenues in life closed to them.

But I think I need to practice writing out Italian verbs.

Yes, Mary Lou, I watched and enjoyed The Night Manager, and have read it. I think the Drummer Girl is going to be even harder for television to do justice to, and look forward to it with high anticipation.

And the week we have just embarked upon is an Andrew-and-Andrea week!

2 comments:

  1. When I learned Spanish as a preteen we had to write out our verbs too, 3 regular cases, and tons of irregular ones. I learned a lot about my native English language from learning Spanish .

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  2. I'm wondering what you are reading these days? I remember that you used to read aloud to your husband and also that I read something by Fanny Trollope that you had both enjoyed. In retirement, I find that my sense of well-being is affected by having something interesting to return to almost as much as it is by taking a reasonable amount of exercise.

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