Day: 27
Temperature: 28
Location: Sao Paulo
Brain: Smoke emanating from ears and nose at the mo.
Book: Starters for Ten
Learning a new language can be confusing. Well, I find it confusing and I know Brutos does too. Sometimes it can be frustrating and you berate yourself for being a dotty, troglodyte that barely has the capacity to feed himself don't mind more advanced mental tasks like absorbing a new form of language. A simple thing like changing the end of a verb to an -amos or an -am can make your brain jump through hoops, and start to screech in a funny kind of, blackboard finger scratching, fork scraping off marble like way . You have to remind yourself constantly that it takes times. You have to daily say to yourself it is a war of attrition, take it easy, take it slow. You have to court patience and walk her home safely at night without holding her hand. You know what I mean.........no.......?
Okay, let's have a glimpse at what I'm presently working on..... VERBS. What a beautifully simple, pain in the, happy-go-lucky, pimple on the arse of, petit little, wonderful word. It has enough fire power to make any wordgeneral toss and turn before the coming of the dawn. Let's take a simple example like,falar: to speak.
We'll start with the impersonal infinitive which I, most soldiers, and dogs can handle, and I'm sure you can to: falar - to speak. Then we have the personal infinitive, falar -to speak, no problem, I hear your trumpets blast. And particles, present and past, falando -speaking and falado - spoken. March on. This is wear war gets ugly and innocence learns that the internet is porn, and that innocence itself is imperfectly perfect. The best type of perfect of them all. The imperfect indicative, eu falava - I was speaking. As in I was talking to you punk. Don't ever try to feed one of my dogs chewing gum again, alright! Next, the banners rise high into the sky and the front line begin to run, the simple pluperfect indicative, eu falara - I had spoken; battle cries everywhere, the calming of the heart,the future indicative, eu falarei - I will or shall speak; the clash of the present perfect or pluperfect indicative, eu tinha falado - I have spoken, have been speaking; with the steel of a thousand imperfect subjuntive, eu falasse - I might speak; and let's not forget the axe swinging and face coloured brute, the complicated, past perfect or pluperfect subjuntive, eu tivesse falado - i might have spoken.
Believe me when I say that this is just the advance of the war. The forces have not met on the battlefield yet. That happens at dawn when the tenses take arms and the courageous subject pronouns both singular and plural mount their horses. Can you see it, can you hear it. The men taking arms. The priests blessing the soldiers. The women waving palms and kissing the cheeks of their men. I can hear it. I hear it everynight. The screams, the cries, the pleas. I can see it. Men being torn apart. Swords being driven into hearts and heads falling to the ground....
Did I mention pronunciations, the cavalry......!!!
