Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Tempo

It seems that everyday I am learning to operate in a new tempo.  While, we took a month to study speaking about the hear and now, it seems we are traveling at light speed when it comes to the rest of time.  There is Passato Prossimo, Imperfetto, Futuro, Composto Futuro and I know that we are just getting started. 

Maybe, this is why I have not been able to write much in English this past month.  Even now, I am having difficulties putting anything into words.

Last night I went to teach English and while I was sitting there going over English conjugation I realized once again how completely simple it is to conjugate a verb in English.  Normally only the He/She changes. ( I am not saying English is easy, our spelling does not correspond to our pronunciation and we have all sorts of nonsensical rules, but as far as conjugation goes)

To Go

Present Tense

I Go                  We Go
You Go             You All Go
He/She Goes      They Go

Where as in Italian

I Go (ANDARE)

Presente

Io Vado            Noi Andiamo
Tu Vai              Voi  Andate
Lui/Lei Va         Loro Vanno

And that is only one tense.  Today we learned a tense that is used when speaking hypothetically or when speaking of two events.  But this tense does not even exist in English.  And what's interesting about this tense is that you have to actually use the Passato Prossimo form of the verb in combination with the verbs Avere(to Have) or Essere (to Be) in order to talk about an event in the future, that happens before another event in the future.

Now, in my training they taught us not to judge, rather to practice Wonder.  (Wow, I wonder why they choose to say it that way...)  So, in my wondering I have determined that there are benefits to having a whole tense dedicated to the idea of MAYBE/ACCORDING TO ME.  And while I am still thinking this way I am going to try to complete my homework.  Before I determine that this tense is useless and just want to hit my head against the wall. 

2 comments:

Donna Burke said...

I enjoyed hearing about your language learning. It brought back alot of memories - those terrible/wonderful tenses!

Anonymous said...

I like it- "Don't judge... practice wonder!" We are going to be reminding ourselves of this everyday from now on!