Saturday 30 October 2010

Aranjuez - by Theo

A hour south of Madrid, surrounded by arid plains, lies the royal retreat of Aranjuez. It was here, among the fields of asparagus and strawberries on the banks of the river Tajo, that the Bourbon monarchs built their Spring residence in imitation of Versailles. So, while it wasn't the season to taste the produce Aranjuez is famous for, we decided to use the visit of my parents as a reason to take the car for a run and get out of the city for a day.After coffee and croissants on a cafe terraza (much to the surprise of the waitress "pero, que frio, no?") we strolled first in the beautiful and huge Jardines del Principe, the trees looking gorgeous in their autumn colours, admiring fountains and follies while Rosie snoozed in the pram. We chanced the menu in El Rana Verde (the green frog) where we managed to find enough veggie options for Kate and I. My parents weren't up for trying the house specialty - frog's legs - sticking with the relatively safe option of steak.Much fun was had during desert by offering Rosie, who had chowed down her puree and yoghurt, a slice of lemon. She masticated away enthusiastically, before pulling a priceless face, then going back for more. Learning takes a while.

More parks followed to walk off lunch, this time in the Jardin de la Isla, an artificial island behind the Royal palace, created by building a weir on the Tajo and diverting a channel. Rosie got a ride in the sling to enjoy a better view of the galleries, aviaries and fountains. A beautiful walk on what had become a warm and sunny autumn day.

Time was getting on and Rosie needed her next nap (in the car this time), so we never actually made it inside the palace. A good excuse for a second visit, then.

Thursday 14 October 2010

Food, frustration and fun By Kate

For almost four months Rosie has been exploring the wondrous world of food. Weaning is the correct term, but I think she's drinking as much milk as she ever did, so it's possibly not accurate. Yet.

Since the first post on this subject, we have discovered a shop in Madrid which sells organic baby food that isn't loaded with unnecessary added salt and/or sugar (UK-made). But it's heinously expensive, so definitely only for emergency situations.

Luckily, after initial despair that Rosie would never condescend to eat the pureed preparations lovingly crafted for her by her Daddy, she soon started to respond more willingly when they were offered. Not to absolutely everything you understand, but as Theo got the hang of baby cuisine and sussed what Rosie's palate would be more likely to accept, we had more hits than misses.

Fruity stuff goes down well, not surprisingly, as do concoctions involving lentils and chick-peas - providing they're well spiced with ginger and/or Garam Masala. Orange stuff is usually preferred over green stuff, but green stuff is deemed acceptable if sexed up with added fruit. Greek yoghurt - taken plain or with added fruit - is an ongoing favourite.
Finger food goes in and out of favour. Roast veg were a big hit to begin with, especially courgettes. Now she spurns those, as she does the potato wedges she once enjoyed and tends to favour red pepper and well-cooked carrot.
Cheese has gone down well (we haven't tried strong-tasting varieties yet except goat's cheese, which wasn't exactly successful) and bread remains popular, although rice-cakes are now preferred over toast. Pasta is generally welcomed, especially if it's rigatoni and almost all fresh fruit is eagerly consumed.
The main problem Rosie finds is that over-enthusiasm for something leads to an over-crammed mouth which she finds almost impossible to empty. Instead she'll look perturbed and wail loudly until the problem resolves itself (the food melts down into more manageable proportions) or a parental finger is inserted to help ease the situation. She'll then spurn the remainder of the offending food as if it's to blame for her predicament.

If dining gets too onerous and Rosie's tolerance levels become exhausted, there's always a fall-back position: the Mummy And Daddy In-house Cabaret. See below for details. Then you can always sneak in a spoonful or two while she's distracted by the live entertainment.

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Lost in Translation - by Theo

Yesterday was the Dia de Hispanidad, which does lose a little something in translation, and a national holiday here in Spain and elsewhere in the Spanish speaking world - given the events of today I wonder whether there will soon be another national holiday in Chile. But that's another story....

Kate and I had a lazy day off, made extra lazy by the fact that Kate had arranged (as an extra birthday present) for our Canadian friend Miriam to take Rosie out for a walk for a couple of hours in the afternoon so we could, for once, enjoy a siesta un-interrupted. Bliss! The laziness continued into the evening and, after dinner in front of an episode of the Wire, we were contemplating bed at around 9pm when the phone rang.

It was my friend and former student Juan. Juan works as a lawyer at a multinational financial firm. He speaks perfect French and excellent English but he is not a translator. However, at the last minute, despite it being a holiday, his firm had dumped a 10 page legal document on him and asked him to translate it into English by the next morning. He was at a loss and wanted my help. Seeing as his English is better than my Spanish I was doubtful about how much help I could be, but as he sounded so desperate I said he could come round - provided he bring some beer.

In the end I quite enjoyed it. Juan had done most of the work, I just needed to check it over. The original Spanish document was dull enough, but was also surprisingly easy to understand as it was very formal and lacked the idioms and colloquialisms that are often confusing in everyday language. In addition many of the Spanish financial terms were exactly the same as the English - take a wild guess what "liquidacion" or "deducion" mean - which of course were easier for me (working Spanish to English) than Juan, who was less confident about the English vocabulary.

Anyway we got it done. Mind you, if you hear of any legal or financial scandals in Spain involving mistranslations, then you'll know who to blame!!

Monday 11 October 2010

So, Theo enters the 30th decade by Kate

Theo's birthday today so I donned some red lipstick for the occasion (last of the twenties, important to be marked by some sort of vigorously youthful colour...) and Rosie snuggled up and joined him dancing to some old skool hiphop on the radio...
Happy Birthday, Daddy! The first time anyone's truly said that to him (well, I did on Rosie's behalf, anyway).

Saturday 9 October 2010

babytalk - by Theo

Consonants are the easiest for her. "dadadadadadadad" or slightly less frequently "mamamama" - I'm wondering whether it was babies that named parents, just as we name them. Other consonants such as 'p' and 'k' also appear, and Rosie seems to have a good handle on the tongue click, which will come in handy if she ever wants to learn Zulu. Occasional vowel-laden yodeling matches are great fun, getting some call and response going - goodness knows what the neighbours think of this.

Of course capturing it all on film is easier said than done. Rosie is captivated by the camera and easily distracted by it, though mostly in a "shiny-thing-wanna-put-in-my-mouth" kind of way. Luckily, although she's started to pull herself upright, crawling is still a couple of weeks away, else there would be no keeping her hands off it.

Saturday 2 October 2010

Fluency Schmuency - by Theo

Coming from a country with one of the lowest rates of knowledge of a second language in Europe, if not the world, it's hardly surprising that we should misunderstand what it is to truly master a foreign language. In England we talk about being "fluent" in a language, usually equating this with having complete control over said tongue.

Not so. Fluent, from fluid, simply means to be able to talk without hesitations or significant pauses in a smooth stream of words. Your pronunciation may be atrocious, you might put the emphasis in totally the wrong places, your prose could be littered with errors and you might be completely incapable of understanding the response you elicit. Doesn't matter; you're fluent, and as far as most English people are concerned, that's enough. Forget the fact that native speakers might be completely confused by your gnomic (yet, fluent) utterances, we feel we've done our bit by blurting out our foreign phrases in one, smooth go.

Before moving to Spain I was just as guilty of this, equating fluency with being able to 'speak' a language (also a bad term - after all it's not much good being able to 'speak' a language if you can't understand the response). In fact, upon taking one of my first classes for Spanish learners of English and finding all my students to be incredibly fluent and generally faultless in English, I was astounded to discover that they were studying for the Cambridge First Certificate in English. The First Certificate. There are two more, higher level exams after that, Advanced and Proficiency. As a rookie teacher I struggled to imagine what more these almost word-perfect teenagers had to learn about the English language. I mean they were fluent, what more did we want?

My own learning experience of Spanish and my continual struggles with French have enlightened me somewhat. I am now 'fluent' in Spanish, though I'm still a long way off being word-perfect, or understanding the majority of things said to me in Spanish. Hopefully though, after 10 months of intermittent self-study, I'll be getting back to Spanish lessons and striving to improve. Or rather I'll be bringing Spanish lessons to me, having persuaded many of my teaching colleagues to band together for an in-house teacher. Meanwhile, having been allotted 4 classes of Proficiency level students in this academic year's timetable, I'll be finding out exactly what more there is to learn about English beyond fluency.