Today in the morning again I went over the Elga's house to tutor her sons Alessandro and Francesco. Today we focused on reading aloud and pronuncing words correctly. We worked on reading the questions and exercises aloud and also pointing at various objects and labeing them. We also looked at telling the time, parts of the body and how to introduce yourself in English.
After that we came home and had lunch, after which Alessandra had appointments so me and Federico played chess again. I'm so out of practice he beats me every time! After chess finished we practiced reading aloud. Fede read from an English copy of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, we read about six pages and made a list of all the words he struggled on to practice and attempt again tomorrow. After that I read aloud from Fede's Italian book. My promouciation is so bad! It doesn't help that the alphabet is pronounced differently and has letters missing!
The Italian Alphabet is: ah, bee, chee, dee, ay, ayffay, jee, ahkkah, ee, jay, ayllay, aymmay, aynnay, oh, pee, koo, ayrray, ayssay, tee, oo, vee, tzaytah (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, z). This one word in particular 'quello' I keep pronouncing as 'kello' but it should be 'kwello'. My Spanish education makes it harder because the words are so similar but not the same.
After reading we all went on the wii Mario tennis, then Beatrice did her piano practice and Fede practiced his guitar. When they had finished we watched a movie - Guillaver's Travels - in Italian with English subtitles so they could compare languages and see the English spellings.
There seems to be a lot of summer storms in Milan. It is sunny one minute and then the next it is throwing if down with rain! But by morning it is as if it never rained. The thunder is very loud and the lightning very bright too.
For tea we had fish. Fede can't stand fish the taste or the smell so he has to eat in a separate room to the rest of us.
I started re-reading Jamaica Inn again. After reading Rebecca I didn't particularly like Daphne du Maurier, but Jamiaca Inn is incredible! Why do we always have a soft spot for the 'bad' guys in literature? Jem Merlyn may be a horse thief but like Mary Yellan does you feel a strange attraction to Jem.
The attraction to Jem is probably helped by the fact that he's played by a rather good looking actor in the BBC version with a rather sweet accent.
Ciao
unlike Jem's brother who knows no Niue than five and a half words and never opens his mouth except to eat or drink
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