Aventuras in Spain

One day in the autumn of 1980, when I was living in Talavera de la Reina I spent a morning in Madrid. Keen to learn more Spanish, I browsed around a shop selling just about every text book you could think of.  Amongst this array of books, one caught my eye. It was a teeny tiny, skinny minny paperback which looked completely innocuous. However, as I flicked through the pages the contents were enough to make my skinny minny brain puzzled and perplexed. The only subject of the book was the Spanish word, ‘se’.  Can’t be that bad, can it?  I can hear you mutter. And you’d be correct. He’s just a wee word is this ‘se’.   But, gollee wollee, he certainly does change the meaning of sentences. He evolves and revolves, slipping and sliding just like any elusive anti-hero we all love to hate. Let’s look at some uses of ‘se’. El niño se llama Juan.     (The boy calls himself Juan.  The boy is called Juan.) Ella se llama Ana . ...

El Puerto de Santa María, 1972/3 My private Spanish tutor and I don't have any text books.  There are none. Instead of reading a grammar book,  we read newspaper articles together. I read out loud and he corrects my pronunciation. He talks of the present tense and the past tenses, all at the same time. And I've to look for examples in the articles.  He gives me dictations from the newspaper articles and we discuss them. Well, I don't actually, for I'm lost and befuddled. He also talks of the subjunctive, the future, and the conditional, all at the same time. It's as if the present tense is of little importance. So much for memorizing the present tense of the AR, the ER and the IR verbs!  I actually love the subjunctive mood in all its complexities. The Spanish language is perplexing and mystifying, intriguing and seductive. When you speak Spanish you have to pretend you're in front of the bravo toro, and give it your all. This is not some  wimpy, insi...