This weekend I have been learning how to say what used to happen.
Vivevo in una cittadina vicino a Newcastle.
So yeah that would be the past tense? No silly, that is the imperfect tense. My schoolboy education didn’t get very formal on grammar – I think it had gone out of fashion. So terms like imperfect tense, perfect tense, present passive, reflexive feel really…well, foreign. I would prefer not to see them at all in an introduction to a foreign language. So much for my A grade in GCSE English Language!! If they’d only taught us Latin like in the old days!
Nonetheless, I am progressing and motivation is still 110% Whoohoo! I have one chapter remaining in my libro di testo. It will be good to complete it. However, I will almost certainly start again from page one to see how much I have forgotten (which will be less good). Having identified my auditory skills to be severely lacking, I am putting in nearly an hour and half each day to listening. This includes listening to a CD in my car during my commute to work. Listening is still a struggle. Also I find I stumble a lot on the little words. The la-di-da’s and ci and a and mi and in. The little #$*!s (shakes fist).
I’m still enjoying it though 🙂
mi chiamo james 