Spanish Skills Under Siege

I woke up and began my day with one of my favorite activities: grammar exercises. (That sentence is not sarcastic in any way.) I did verb conjugations, this time not only indicative but also imperative. Good times. I am getting close to page 200 of my Italian Now! book.

In the afternoon I ran a bunch of errands, doing Pimsleur everywhere I went. I passed through Central Park four times (two passes each for two East Side appointments), and got through so much Pimsleur in the park that I ran out of new lessons on my Creative Zen. I had to go back to an old Italian lesson, which I found insanely easy. (With Russian Pimsleur, as I advanced I would often forget at least some of the content from earlier lessons, but that doesn’t seem to be happening here.)

Practicing Italian along the reservoir in Central Park, I saw tons of buffleheads. They are back. They are so cute. They dive compulsively and always look very busy.

I am still having so much fun rolling my r’s. I told Brandt today, “I think I may love Italian more than Spanish.”

And yet this love may have repercussions. When I went downstairs to the mailroom to get our mail, I came across Luis, one of the building employees I always speak Spanish to. Today, as soon as I opened my mouth, I found myself mixing up Spanish and Italian. I got confused telling him our mailbox number, for example. Instead of the Spanish ciento (pronounced see-EN-to) for 100, I said the Italian cento (pronounced CHEN-to). Then, for fifty, I mistakenly said cinquanta (pronounced ching-KWAN-ta) instead of the Spanish cincuenta (sing-KWEN-ta). Oh-oh. I really don’t want to do harm to my Spanish. I hope this will pass.

Tonight I kept doing Pimsleur and got through lesson 25. The last two lessons I did while cleaning and doing dishes. I can actually multitask with Italian Pimsleur, unlike with Arabic and Russian. Because of that, I can get more lessons done in a day—eight in all since this morning, in fact!