During the first part of November leading up to the terrible flooding disaster suffered in Valencia the main discussion on the news channel I have been tuning into, www.rtve.es (which I will be highly recommending to Spanish language students as a wonderful source of “self learning” listening and learning ) was around the issue of La vivienda (Housing) and Alojamiento (Accommodation).
This topic also included inmigración & migrantes which are examples of a multitude of Spanish words a Spanish language beginner will very quickly discover are immediately understandable!
In particular, the news focused on the plight of young people finding alojamiento asequible (affordable accommodation) and featured conversations with young people on the issues confronting them in this regard which provided a range of useful vocabulary with lots of helpful context.
Of course the news then switched dramatically and understandably to the tragedy including the awful devastation the floods brought to the Valencia region and the amazing contribution (contribución) of all the citizen volunteers who turned up to help and of course the work of the emergency services including mounted horseback searches along the coastline.
The vocabulary around the tragedy presented in the news was not perhaps what a beginner would be seeking out but of value of course – including the one word that I know I will never forget, La Gobierno – The Government – understandably used over and over again with reporters considering “respuesta del gobierno”, the government response.
My vocabulary book now also includes tens, the missing, provoked, the media, continuous, a disaster, victims and the displaced: Decenas, los desaparecidos, provocado, los medios de comunicación, continuo, un desastre, víctimas, los desplazados.
The first part of November did however also include some positive and fun meetings and also included one of my favourite pictures of my Spanish language journey to date which I am delighted to present in this weeks blog.
This is my picture souvenir of when I bumped into two Ingenieros WiFi (Wi-Fi Engineers) concentrating very hard on a street repair and perhaps understandably the last person they wanted to bump into right at that moment was me with my questions!
However, they very kindly spoke with me and what I love about this picture is that, as everyone keeps reminding me, it is the wintery season here and I very much appreciate how this picture illustrates this!
Namely, the mini umbrella positioned to keep the November sunshine out of their eyes and highlighting the Winter work wear required when working out in the November 24c weather conditions!
Hasta la próxima!
