As it turns out, "tuna" is the cactus pear- the fruit on a cactus. I knew "aceite" was oil, and did not know that "aceituna" was olives. I often see roadside stands in this area that say "tuna" and "aceituna"..never having stopped I thought they sold tuna (tunafish in English), and tuna in oil.....As it turn out they are selling cactus pears and olives! ha ha I know words with the same spelling are not always the same word, yet I never even thought about it, but I did wonder why they didn't sell tuna packaged in water ha ha.
It's like when I was asking for "jamon" instead of "jabon" for my bathroom in a house I stayed in when I was in San Miguel Allende. Ha ha the man's face when I asked for ham for my shower!! And it's funny, I am always hesitant to ask where the soup is in the grocery store- it happened today, because "sopa" sounds like soap....and in my pea brain I think of jamon & jabon, and so usually just look up and down every aisle to find soup rather than ask where it is...
So this evening a woman and her daughter and another friend showed up here to talk about the daughter- her name is Estefanie- teaching me Spanish. I had asked the woman, who works in the camp getting houses ready for the short term rentals, if she knew of anyone teaching or taking Sapnish lessons and she told me about her daughter- but that was over a month ago and did not expect to hear anything else about it. In fact I was with my friend Meena when we were taking care of Bob the Sea Lion, we saw this woman (Fanny) and her friend walking on the beach, and that's how this all started. Ok so....Meena and I are interested in taking conversational Spanish, and I think my friend Jan is also interested. The price is right (muy barato = cheap) since none of us can afford much, just the schedule to be worked out. Estefanie said start in Sept, but she has to figure out a schedule because she first said 7 to 9 AM! Ha ha that does not work for me and I know not for Meena either....but Estefanie has school in the evening, and I think maybe she also has a job...but I was not clear on that point. I think she might have felt a little overwhelmed, like maybe her mom pushed her into the whole thing....She is only 20 years old and is currently teaching 2 Korean kids Spanish via Skype (these kids are in Chicago & here for vacations), and then in Sept she starts teaching another woman somewhere in this area..so she has to figure out what works for her. When I started to sense that maybe she felt pressured, I tried to tell her in Spanish that it was ok if she's too busy. All 3 of them were saying that my Spanish was really good, but I explained it was understanding what was being said to me that was my struggle....it's so fast, there are so many words for one thing, different words for the same thing depending on where you are in Mexico and we all laughed about that.
I would like very much to be in a class setting and speaking Spanish in a group; I think it will boost my confidence for speaking. I started Rosetta Stone about a year ago but dropped if after about 7 or 8 months...but just restarted it and am about to finish it. I don't like it very much but I have this thing about finishing things. Like books ha ha. I would slog thru a book even if I hated it because I felt driven to finish it. I have finally in the last couple of years started to modify that behavior a little bit...I scan and skip thru to close to the end and then finish.....My problem with Rosetta Stone is twofold; the first is mechanics: when I speak, half the the time it beeps me (you know- says wrong!) when I pronouce something, even if it's perfect. It always beeps me when I say "gracias" or "si", the easy stuff, or "registra"...makes me crazy. Before I quit the program it mad me so mad, and so learning became a big drag, I was always pissed off. The other parts I always did very well with; usually 100% and always above 90%. (oh and I skipped most of the writing lessons). So the second issue is that Rosetta Stone does all the teaching with pictures, so you can always figure out the right answer..and that's not helping me. I think subconsciously I always looked at the pictures and didn't have to understand exactly what was being said- maybe that's why comprehension remains my problem, since most other people I talk to say they can understand but not talk....So I quit doing it.
I found Duolingo a few months ago and started that and I really like it- I think I wrote that here before when I first discovered it. No pictures, but it does show you the translation in English after you complete something, and you can always click on any word to get the translation, which helps alot, since Rosetta Stone does not, and I might go thru a whole lesson not sure of some part of it. Ok well a couple of weeks ago I was looking at the icon on my desktop for Rosetta Stone and decided to finish it. I did get alot out of it, but I will be glad to say I finished it. (yeah that's just a personal thing)
Ok weather report for northern Baja. We are still having the red tide here in our bay, and right in front of our place- yuck. But in the morning I walk down the beach a ways, and it ends & then Sam & Hazel can run in. And it doesn't stretch the entire length of the beach in either direction, so I'm hopeful it is not here every single day...although it has been every day since the stingray incident. And this morning it stunk! Like dead fish, and the sand right next to the water has this gunky red stuff on it. I heard it was here all last summer. Ah well, the price of paradise, right? The early morning is cool, but still tshirt weather and I wear shorts and tanks every day. The evening cools off so sleeping is ok, too. SOOOO different than my last 2 summers and I am very happy about that. Many mornings have summer fog, and tonite it also got foggy, but not over us. Out at the mouth of the bay, and then off to the south along the mountain ridge that goes across from the ocean back inland. It is really such a pretty place. The weather has not gotten really hot or really cold since we arrived in November. We did have one hot spell for about 8-10 days and we did have a couple of rainy days, but even those were not really cold.
Everardo has been making enough to pay for our gas and our food for the last month and wow what a difference to not worry so much all the time. As always I feel like life is pretty darn good.
Viva
It's like when I was asking for "jamon" instead of "jabon" for my bathroom in a house I stayed in when I was in San Miguel Allende. Ha ha the man's face when I asked for ham for my shower!! And it's funny, I am always hesitant to ask where the soup is in the grocery store- it happened today, because "sopa" sounds like soap....and in my pea brain I think of jamon & jabon, and so usually just look up and down every aisle to find soup rather than ask where it is...
So this evening a woman and her daughter and another friend showed up here to talk about the daughter- her name is Estefanie- teaching me Spanish. I had asked the woman, who works in the camp getting houses ready for the short term rentals, if she knew of anyone teaching or taking Sapnish lessons and she told me about her daughter- but that was over a month ago and did not expect to hear anything else about it. In fact I was with my friend Meena when we were taking care of Bob the Sea Lion, we saw this woman (Fanny) and her friend walking on the beach, and that's how this all started. Ok so....Meena and I are interested in taking conversational Spanish, and I think my friend Jan is also interested. The price is right (muy barato = cheap) since none of us can afford much, just the schedule to be worked out. Estefanie said start in Sept, but she has to figure out a schedule because she first said 7 to 9 AM! Ha ha that does not work for me and I know not for Meena either....but Estefanie has school in the evening, and I think maybe she also has a job...but I was not clear on that point. I think she might have felt a little overwhelmed, like maybe her mom pushed her into the whole thing....She is only 20 years old and is currently teaching 2 Korean kids Spanish via Skype (these kids are in Chicago & here for vacations), and then in Sept she starts teaching another woman somewhere in this area..so she has to figure out what works for her. When I started to sense that maybe she felt pressured, I tried to tell her in Spanish that it was ok if she's too busy. All 3 of them were saying that my Spanish was really good, but I explained it was understanding what was being said to me that was my struggle....it's so fast, there are so many words for one thing, different words for the same thing depending on where you are in Mexico and we all laughed about that.
I would like very much to be in a class setting and speaking Spanish in a group; I think it will boost my confidence for speaking. I started Rosetta Stone about a year ago but dropped if after about 7 or 8 months...but just restarted it and am about to finish it. I don't like it very much but I have this thing about finishing things. Like books ha ha. I would slog thru a book even if I hated it because I felt driven to finish it. I have finally in the last couple of years started to modify that behavior a little bit...I scan and skip thru to close to the end and then finish.....My problem with Rosetta Stone is twofold; the first is mechanics: when I speak, half the the time it beeps me (you know- says wrong!) when I pronouce something, even if it's perfect. It always beeps me when I say "gracias" or "si", the easy stuff, or "registra"...makes me crazy. Before I quit the program it mad me so mad, and so learning became a big drag, I was always pissed off. The other parts I always did very well with; usually 100% and always above 90%. (oh and I skipped most of the writing lessons). So the second issue is that Rosetta Stone does all the teaching with pictures, so you can always figure out the right answer..and that's not helping me. I think subconsciously I always looked at the pictures and didn't have to understand exactly what was being said- maybe that's why comprehension remains my problem, since most other people I talk to say they can understand but not talk....So I quit doing it.
I found Duolingo a few months ago and started that and I really like it- I think I wrote that here before when I first discovered it. No pictures, but it does show you the translation in English after you complete something, and you can always click on any word to get the translation, which helps alot, since Rosetta Stone does not, and I might go thru a whole lesson not sure of some part of it. Ok well a couple of weeks ago I was looking at the icon on my desktop for Rosetta Stone and decided to finish it. I did get alot out of it, but I will be glad to say I finished it. (yeah that's just a personal thing)
Ok weather report for northern Baja. We are still having the red tide here in our bay, and right in front of our place- yuck. But in the morning I walk down the beach a ways, and it ends & then Sam & Hazel can run in. And it doesn't stretch the entire length of the beach in either direction, so I'm hopeful it is not here every single day...although it has been every day since the stingray incident. And this morning it stunk! Like dead fish, and the sand right next to the water has this gunky red stuff on it. I heard it was here all last summer. Ah well, the price of paradise, right? The early morning is cool, but still tshirt weather and I wear shorts and tanks every day. The evening cools off so sleeping is ok, too. SOOOO different than my last 2 summers and I am very happy about that. Many mornings have summer fog, and tonite it also got foggy, but not over us. Out at the mouth of the bay, and then off to the south along the mountain ridge that goes across from the ocean back inland. It is really such a pretty place. The weather has not gotten really hot or really cold since we arrived in November. We did have one hot spell for about 8-10 days and we did have a couple of rainy days, but even those were not really cold.
Everardo has been making enough to pay for our gas and our food for the last month and wow what a difference to not worry so much all the time. As always I feel like life is pretty darn good.
Viva
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