My new scandinavian friend has turned out to be German. Okay so I'm not the best at detecting accents. She sounded like she was speaking with a danish accent on the phone. Anyway she's really interesting and her little boy is adorable! She and her husband work for an international organization in Geneva and they are constantly travelling all over the world on assignment. The whole family will move to Africa in six months. They have their home based here in Haute-Savoie though, in her words the "loveliest place on earth." I can't really argue with that. I ended up sharing our plans for Mexico with her and we both decided that this was a perfect arrangement for a friendship. Both of us are leaving at the same time. They'll be returning here in two years and we'll be back in three. Maybe we'll stay friends and meet up after our travels.Her son is three and he speaks three languages! He speaks to his mother in German and he's very chatty in it. His dad is Colombian and he started speaking his first words in Spanish with his father. He also speaks and undertands English as I discovered when I asked him if he wanted some juice and he said "no...just water please!" His mother beamed and I just stood there thinking "damn little guy can I upload your language files!" It's impressive and put my mind at ease. Little S will easily pick up all three languages. We have no need to worry. He'll probably be translating for me in Mexico. "My mommy would like to know if you have this dress in vermilion please and she said you know nothing about fashion!"
I've been checking out Geneva nursery schools. I know, I know. How very supercilious of me. It's actually practical. While we slave over our Spanish lessons in a certain Geneva language school Little S can be in the nearby nursery school reading, dancing and slapping paper maché around with his absurdly wealthy toddler homies. And meanwhile we'll just see if we can't get Seb's company to pick up the tab for the time he spends there while we take language lessons. I bet they will.
Okay I'm off to make some flashcards. Flashcards are always good. Otherwise anyone got any other language learning tips they want to pass on? What do you think is the one big secret formula to learning. What works best for you? We only have six hours a month so I'll be working all alone through most of this.
5 comments:
When I first moved to France and didn't speak the language, I labeled everything. Even the ceiling had a tag on it, so whenever I'd look at it, I'd see the word and end up thinking it. It helped me a lot. Fortunately Spanish is one of those languages where if there's a letter, you say it. Much, much easier to pronounce, and the grammar isn't too terribly different from French, so you've definately got a heads up in both areas! Good luck!
(and about the boy doing what he does standing up at his age, we have no idea how that happened--but he now refuses to sit...he's odd, that child, but as long as his aim is true, i'll not argue with him.)
dont know what schools you ahve been checking out, but i have some coworkers who send their kids to EVE (the one associated with the University) and they are quite happy with it.
Thanks Sara I'll check it out!
The most important thing is to study every day, even if you're on your own. The language needs to be a regular part of your routine, because it certainly will be when you get there! As doc said, it's much easier to pronounce than French, and you really have a head start grammatically because of your French!
Good luck!
I just love that little BOOK!
Too bad my MIL is so far from you, she repeats everything ten times, and she speaks decent spanish and french, of course. I am serious, ten freaking times!!!!
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