I don't exactly recollect how long it took me to master 'He goes', 'She goes', 'It goes' and 'They go' in school. But when the teacher said that Spanish has only two articles - "a" and "the", I was very happy. Things can't get any simpler than that, now can they? But I had no way of knowing about Masculino Singular, Femenino Singular, Masculino Plural and Femenino Plural - separate for "a" and for "the"!
Just when I thought I had got it all squared away after a couple of repetitions, the teacher dropped another bombshell - there are rules about what can be considered as masculine and what is feminine. I had blissfully assumed that the rules are rather universal. And then there are exceptions. Of course! So though you can consider many nouns ending in 'o' as masculine - El/Un Libro (book) for example - mano (hand) and radio (radio) are, for some inexplicable reason, feminine. Nouns ending in 'a' are feminine most of the times - e.g. La/ Una pizarra (blackboard) - but dia (day) and planeta (planet) are masculine.Thankfully, the rule that nouns representing male relatives are masculine and those for female relatives are feminine doesn't have any exceptions. :-)
I glanced at my cell phone at the end of couple of exercises and was amazed to see that we were already at the end of the class. As I wondered if I am gonna able to memorize all this, a part of me knew that I definitely would.
As I sat writing this, the movie 'We Bought The Zoo' was playing in the background. One of the keepers was talking to Benjamin, the new owner of the zoo. She told him all the problems that the zoo was facing and asked him why he bought the place. I paused to see what Benjamin was going to say. He simply said 'Why not?' and smiled. I found myself smiling with him. That's one hell of a reason. And probably heaps better than mine 'Spanish is the second most used language in the world'.
What say?
Just when I thought I had got it all squared away after a couple of repetitions, the teacher dropped another bombshell - there are rules about what can be considered as masculine and what is feminine. I had blissfully assumed that the rules are rather universal. And then there are exceptions. Of course! So though you can consider many nouns ending in 'o' as masculine - El/Un Libro (book) for example - mano (hand) and radio (radio) are, for some inexplicable reason, feminine. Nouns ending in 'a' are feminine most of the times - e.g. La/ Una pizarra (blackboard) - but dia (day) and planeta (planet) are masculine.Thankfully, the rule that nouns representing male relatives are masculine and those for female relatives are feminine doesn't have any exceptions. :-)
I glanced at my cell phone at the end of couple of exercises and was amazed to see that we were already at the end of the class. As I wondered if I am gonna able to memorize all this, a part of me knew that I definitely would.
As I sat writing this, the movie 'We Bought The Zoo' was playing in the background. One of the keepers was talking to Benjamin, the new owner of the zoo. She told him all the problems that the zoo was facing and asked him why he bought the place. I paused to see what Benjamin was going to say. He simply said 'Why not?' and smiled. I found myself smiling with him. That's one hell of a reason. And probably heaps better than mine 'Spanish is the second most used language in the world'.
What say?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment