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Moments of cake
Feb. 7th, 2007 11:56 amAs you can probably imagine, I feel utterly down today. I’ve not really resolved in my head what the best course of action is – continuing with the lessons, despite the teachers suggestion, is possibly the least bad option, but I’m underwhelmed by this as a choice; not only is it passive, it also offers no additional solution to the problems I’ve got.
The other options are, however, noticeably less appealing and would limit what exposure to Dutch I’m currently getting – lower level courses involve more speaking in English, because everyone there understands less, so returning to that level doesn’t really address the problem.
The twice weekly courses are also less likely to get off the ground, because I’m finding it difficult to leave work once a week to go to the lessons; I’ve been told off for leaving early on more than one occasion (once at 8-30pm), so hiking this up to twice a week doesn’t strike me as a practical alternative.
C, bless her, just doesn’t understand. In the post-lesson conversation last night: she told me a story of how she had a similar experience at Uni, where she had to work really hard & only got a 2:1, rather than a first*, which didn’t help much. A comparable experience would have ben ‘when she worked really hard at something & was still asked to leave the course because she wasn’t good enough’ but she’s fortunate enough to have not encountered that scenario.
Another ‘let them eat cake’ moment was when we were talking about the Dutch dictionary she’d bought me for my birthday. When I told her that it was no good for me, she expressed bewilderment. How could it not be? It was a simple, easy to use dictionary, with lots of helpful narrative.
I then told her that it was no use to me because the translations were all in Dutch, whereupon, she looked blankly at me & said “but you’re in Basis 3 now. I was using an all-Dutch dictionary when I was doing Basis 2. What do you mean, you don’t understand it?”
As I said, a cake moment.
Please don’t interpret this as me trying to get at C, I love her dearly & it would be nice if I had her advantages in terms of languages, but there are times when you appreciate just how different the other persons perspective on the world is.
S
*this is my recollection of the story, at any rate.
The other options are, however, noticeably less appealing and would limit what exposure to Dutch I’m currently getting – lower level courses involve more speaking in English, because everyone there understands less, so returning to that level doesn’t really address the problem.
The twice weekly courses are also less likely to get off the ground, because I’m finding it difficult to leave work once a week to go to the lessons; I’ve been told off for leaving early on more than one occasion (once at 8-30pm), so hiking this up to twice a week doesn’t strike me as a practical alternative.
C, bless her, just doesn’t understand. In the post-lesson conversation last night: she told me a story of how she had a similar experience at Uni, where she had to work really hard & only got a 2:1, rather than a first*, which didn’t help much. A comparable experience would have ben ‘when she worked really hard at something & was still asked to leave the course because she wasn’t good enough’ but she’s fortunate enough to have not encountered that scenario.
Another ‘let them eat cake’ moment was when we were talking about the Dutch dictionary she’d bought me for my birthday. When I told her that it was no good for me, she expressed bewilderment. How could it not be? It was a simple, easy to use dictionary, with lots of helpful narrative.
I then told her that it was no use to me because the translations were all in Dutch, whereupon, she looked blankly at me & said “but you’re in Basis 3 now. I was using an all-Dutch dictionary when I was doing Basis 2. What do you mean, you don’t understand it?”
As I said, a cake moment.
Please don’t interpret this as me trying to get at C, I love her dearly & it would be nice if I had her advantages in terms of languages, but there are times when you appreciate just how different the other persons perspective on the world is.
S
*this is my recollection of the story, at any rate.
