Weeding in Italian

I had fallen behind in my detailed gardening, being distracted by installation of new windows (three down, fourteen to go!) and the truckloads of grass clippings arriving each day, which require assembly of compost bins, which in turn require fabrication of compost bin panels.

But out I got this morning, armed with a kneeling plank and a garden trowel, hands encased in cotton gloves. Trowel in the soil, hand around the base of the stem, lever and pull, cast onto the path outside the garden bed. For mulch I use weed-free fresh grass clippings, of which I always have a surplus.

My neighbours see me on my knees, and they think that I am weeding. "What a boring job; but Chris puts in the hours to grow his vegetables".

Not true.

Not boring at all.

I am listening to SBS in Italiano while I weed. My smart phone is in my shirt pocket. Weeding is a mechanical process and requires no great analytical skill.

Listening to news in Italian/French/Spanish is rewarding as I grow in the language.

I have now dropped all English-language news podcasts and rely on News in French to keep up on world affairs (the Tour de France, making Brie in Western Australia, and so on).

Listening to the news in a foreign language is a great way to learn the language. For one thing there is no examination or test. For another thing, there is always the weather and sports so that I can start by learning the numbers associated with temperatures and football scores. Then there are the sound-bites where some pollie spots a microphone and reacts with a few phrases until he/she/it is cut off, so there is a background item in English which helps to put the discussion in French in context.

I apply logic to this.

I reason that if I don't listen to French I will never learn French, but if I do listen to French, then I might learn French.

The betting money is on learning French.

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