Milano, Milano, Milano...
VERB CONJUGATIONS:
A couple weeks ago, while I was designing a custom planner for myself, I thought of a book I need to make. Supposing one already knows the basics of grammar of a language and has a serviceable pocket dictionary, what's the biggest obstacle to communication? Verb conjugations. How do you say, "Yeah, I would have done that, but I had to..." if you don't know the past tense, let alone the conditional past perfect. So in addition to the pocket dictionary, I want a verb conjugation book. It would have all the basic verbs in the language of interest in alphabetical order with translation into english and conjugations into all the major tenses, as well as contextual translations for each of the tenses. There would also be a table of english verbs, in alphabetical order, with the Italian translation and the page number for its conjugations. As such, in any situation (like the one today when I wanted to ask "can I return this next week if (subjunctively) I don't like it?"), I can look up the necessary verb and the proper conjugation. Instant practice, instant learning, and all I need to do is copy the verb conjugation charts from some site like wordreference.com into a book, alphabetize them, and make an alphabetical list in English.
SHOPPING IN MILANO (or VERB CONJUGATIONS continued...)
Today I went shopping for educational (English) materials for my boss. I actually really enjoyed the experience, despite all but one of the purchases being for someone else. There is just something about spending 2 hours and 150 dollars (100 euros) in a really big store, finding and purchasing exactly the right books, regardless of the intended recipient or purpose. Anyway, back to that one purchase, it was for me. I found that book I had designed. Despite costing 13.30 euros (19 dollars) and being somewhat larger than pocket sized, it is even better than the one I designed. Specifically, it has a half-page description of each verb tense (in English!) and the proper ways to use them (since not all Italian verb tenses translate directly into English). It also has all verbs conjugated the same way (the standard ones, mostly) referenced back to the same page. For example, if you need to conjugate "to smoke" into the past tense, 3rd person ("he/she/it smoked"), you would look up "smoke," which would point you to "fumare, pg. 9". On page 9, you would find "amare" (to love). Since the conjugation is the same for all tenses, they don't waste pages repeating the same information, but just show you "amava," so you know the conjugation you need is "fumava." So perfect! And finally, at the bottom of each page, it has an Italian example for each verb tense and an English translation (worded verbosely in the case of non-direct tense conversions). Language purchased.
SNOW (or SHOPPING IN MILANO continued...)
In other news, it was snowing just before and after this shopping expedition. Milano seems so magical in the snow... Is it the Christmas decorations? That I was in a particularly commercial, well-groomed district? No, these things usually don't comfort or inspire a feeling of beauty or magic in me. AH! The snow distracted me from my usual habit of looking-at-the-ground-to-avoid-stepping-in-shit, so I was looking *up* at the shiny lights and snow! And if I did step in any shit, it was frozen, so there's no reason to care! Oh, snow, you might just make Milano liveable this winter (as opposed to Boston, which you made into a miserable city, as far as I'm concerned).
(Insert closing paragraph here.) ... or not, really.
A couple weeks ago, while I was designing a custom planner for myself, I thought of a book I need to make. Supposing one already knows the basics of grammar of a language and has a serviceable pocket dictionary, what's the biggest obstacle to communication? Verb conjugations. How do you say, "Yeah, I would have done that, but I had to..." if you don't know the past tense, let alone the conditional past perfect. So in addition to the pocket dictionary, I want a verb conjugation book. It would have all the basic verbs in the language of interest in alphabetical order with translation into english and conjugations into all the major tenses, as well as contextual translations for each of the tenses. There would also be a table of english verbs, in alphabetical order, with the Italian translation and the page number for its conjugations. As such, in any situation (like the one today when I wanted to ask "can I return this next week if (subjunctively) I don't like it?"), I can look up the necessary verb and the proper conjugation. Instant practice, instant learning, and all I need to do is copy the verb conjugation charts from some site like wordreference.com into a book, alphabetize them, and make an alphabetical list in English.
SHOPPING IN MILANO (or VERB CONJUGATIONS continued...)
Today I went shopping for educational (English) materials for my boss. I actually really enjoyed the experience, despite all but one of the purchases being for someone else. There is just something about spending 2 hours and 150 dollars (100 euros) in a really big store, finding and purchasing exactly the right books, regardless of the intended recipient or purpose. Anyway, back to that one purchase, it was for me. I found that book I had designed. Despite costing 13.30 euros (19 dollars) and being somewhat larger than pocket sized, it is even better than the one I designed. Specifically, it has a half-page description of each verb tense (in English!) and the proper ways to use them (since not all Italian verb tenses translate directly into English). It also has all verbs conjugated the same way (the standard ones, mostly) referenced back to the same page. For example, if you need to conjugate "to smoke" into the past tense, 3rd person ("he/she/it smoked"), you would look up "smoke," which would point you to "fumare, pg. 9". On page 9, you would find "amare" (to love). Since the conjugation is the same for all tenses, they don't waste pages repeating the same information, but just show you "amava," so you know the conjugation you need is "fumava." So perfect! And finally, at the bottom of each page, it has an Italian example for each verb tense and an English translation (worded verbosely in the case of non-direct tense conversions). Language purchased.
SNOW (or SHOPPING IN MILANO continued...)
In other news, it was snowing just before and after this shopping expedition. Milano seems so magical in the snow... Is it the Christmas decorations? That I was in a particularly commercial, well-groomed district? No, these things usually don't comfort or inspire a feeling of beauty or magic in me. AH! The snow distracted me from my usual habit of looking-at-the-ground-to-avoid-stepping-in-shit, so I was looking *up* at the shiny lights and snow! And if I did step in any shit, it was frozen, so there's no reason to care! Oh, snow, you might just make Milano liveable this winter (as opposed to Boston, which you made into a miserable city, as far as I'm concerned).
(Insert closing paragraph here.) ... or not, really.
Comments
I'll also be in Boston on May 4th for a week.
I see you're in Copenhagen right now. I'll likely be in Amsterdam for a week or five, up until my flight from there on May 4th. A week is more likely, as it depends how fast the cycling trip goes, and I'm a rather slow cyclist who's trying to GPS map poorly signposted routes in the winter.
Anyway, plan a trip to Amsterdam!