American in Spain

Union Rep

January 26, 2012

Union Rep (thumbnail)Nora was being particularly cute recently during her nightly routine of barging into my office to interrupt my work and inform me of the state of dinner as it is progressing in the kitchen. So I grabbed the video camera and shot her. The result is pretty representative of her English abilities. The phrasing is a little off, e.g. "You no can work" instead of "You cannot work", but she has the general structure down. Sometimes it takes her a moment to figure out where her sentence is going. In general, I'd say her English skill is about 80% that of her Spanish. Somehow she's picked up the British term "sitting room" – rather than the American "living room" – from her mother. My "close the door from the outside" trick didn't go so well in this video, but sometimes it works smoothly.