Comenzamos clases de español hoy

We started back into our Spanish lessons today. Maestro Ivan (I-ban), like any good teacher, was sadly disappointed with how much we had forgotten over the summer. (Twice, I've accidentally referred to our period away from here as the winter; indeed, the summer in Canada is much cooler than our time in Nayarit). We started back into the basics, turns out there is no "Z" sound in Spanish, it is pronounced as an "S", no "V" sound, pronounced as a very soft "B", no "H" sound, it is never pronounced. "D" is pronounced as the "th" sound in "the", hence "todo" is properly pronounced "toe-tho", "nada" "nah-tha", "pescado" "pess-ka-tho", etc. A single "r" is a soft "r", "pair-o", but a double "rr" gets rolled like you were a drunken Scottish lord, "perro" pronounced "perrrrro". (pero means "but", however, perro means "dog"). I had just gotten used to pronouncing "ll" as a "y" (llamo pronounced yamo) when Ivan dropped the bombshell that a double "l" is actually pronounced as a "j" (llamo is not pronounced yamo, but rather jamo)!! We went through hard "G"s (grande - gran-day), soft "G"s (gente - hen-tay), and hard "G"'s with silent "u"'s (Guadalajara). We went around the table of five students, saying the five or ten examples of each sound we were working on. When it is a sound or usage that you are not familiar with, it can initially (and secondarily) be difficult to even hear the sound, never mind the difference between the correct pronunciation and whatever mangled attempt we were producing.

Luckily, today was a short class, my tongue felt like it had been doing somersaults. It is the reality of trying to minimize your accent when speaking another language.  An Ivan quote - "Oh yes, that is understandable, however it sounds very Canadian" 8-).

We had a bit of wind today and they are predicting rain for the weekend possibly even tomorrow so Carlos came and fixed our wall where we needed some bricks added so the water won't run into our site if its a downpour.

 Lots of colourful plants in the park right now.

Very large bees, about size of a Loonie

Bananas

We spent the afternoon watching the ocean.   The birds were having a great time soaring the winds.  Some friends dropped by for some refreshments and they helped us drop the rear copy before they left due to the wind.  We finished off the day with an excellent dinner at Wanda's - ribs, shrimp burger, coleslaw, fries, wine and beers for 500 pesos including the tip.