Daily Archive

I thought it was time for a roundup of what-all I’ve been doing with this lovely spacious sabbatical time. I like having a lot of projects going–it’s one thing I love about congregation-based ministry–so I’ll give several brief updates.

One thing I wanted to do was keep practicing my Spanish. Of the four basic language skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening, the latter is probably the one in which I struggle the most. And I love audiobooks. Voila: I am immersing myself in spoken Spanish via audiobooks.

I watched my daughter progress in her French using this method. Now, she also diligently creates and reviews electronic flashcards, seeks out French speakers online, and is wholeheartedly dedicated to the project of learning French, which is how she went from 0 to fluent in under three years. I might not be at that level. Still, it was amazing to listen to her listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in French. “Are you following all of this?” I asked her, and she said, “Some of it. Well enough. You know–I already know what’s going on, so I can fill in the blanks.” By the time she got to Deathly Hallows, her answer was a simple “Yes.” Over the course of seven audiobooks, her listening comprehension and vocabulary skyrocketed.

So I’m doing the same, though not so systematically. I chose Prisoner of Azkaban because it’s my favorite in the series, and I could feel the leap in my comprehension level between the beginning and the end of the book. I have to slow the narration speed down to 0.8x, but my ears seem to be getting a little faster. When I got to the end of Prisoner–feeling very accomplished–I was a little tired of HP, and besides, even though it’s just a book out of the library and I doubt it puts even a penny in JKR’s pocket, she is on my sh**list and I’d have liked to choose something else. But the list of Spanish audio versions of books I know really well is not that long. You can find my favorite authors on audio, and you can find their books in Spanish translation. Finding the Spanish translations on audio? Not so much.

I was delighted to find The Secret Garden, but there was a glitch–after about a page, the book skipped to the beginning of the next chapter, as if it were just a sample. I settled for The Little Prince, which I don’t love as much as The Secret Garden but has the advantage of simpler language. Same glitch. (All of this was on my phone and on a road trip. Now that I’m back home, I have shot Hoopla a note, hoping it can be fixed.) So it was back to HP, and we are on our way to Hogwarts after the Quidditch World Cup. I’m still at 0.8 speed, but the flow of words is more comprehensible. Who knows, maybe by the time I’ve listened to all seven, I’ll be up to full speed.

I hope you’ll check out my new column, Ask Isabel: Advice for the Spiritually Perplexed or Vexed

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