Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

What was I thinking?

Had a great Spanish lesson last night, and homework this week doesn't look insane (seems to be an every-other-week thing, one week reasonable, next week crazy).   And I made the mistake of taking a nap after work today, which means I'll be up for hours (loving today but already dreading tomorrow!).    So brilliant me decides "hey, why not try to translate an old Flash into Spanish."   Right.  I see no possible flaw in this situation.

So I pick one that is A - short, and B - not particularly descriptive (my vocabulary is still pretty sad).  Trying to be realistic here...

And, because I wanted to see what I could actually do -- I set rules.   Google translate only for mandatory vocabulary that I couldn't think of a substitute for (eg, no cheating and dropping whole sentences in) -- AND I would write out those words so I have them for later (this is standard practice for me).   BUT - I could use whatever text books, homework, or internet *teaching* resources required to look up how to do something as necessary.

Right - so story is written mostly in past tense -- no problem.  First sentence, good to go.  Win.
Should've quit while I was ahead...
But wait.  Spanish has two past tenses (that's a lie, but I'm simplifying here).  Two that were required by my second sentence.   And in theory, I know them both.  If you ask me to conjugate a word in either, I can do so.  Maybe iffy on some of the irregulars, but the general concept is there.   I even theoretically know when to use each one.  Theoretically.  Turns out the reality is pretty vague *sigh*. And while my CR teacher actually got the concept through my little brain, it's not in there solidly enough to make executive decisions *g*.   And not allowed to cheat with google.  So I guessed.  And in at least one case, I used the same word / situation twice, so I guessed the other way just to be sure I was right at least once.  Lol.  Right.


Then there's a tense for I "would do X" - not really sure what it's called or what it would be in English, but at least it's pretty consistent.   So filled in a few of those.

And future is easy.  Very easy.

So done right?


Oh no.   Cause just to make life exciting, Spanish has the subjunctive.  Yeah - that's about as fun as it sounds.  Essentially anything opinion / emotion / non-fact based uses a whole nother tense.  So all those previously learned future, present, past 1, past 2 skills?  Yup - only cover a portion of situations.  Frig.   And this one I've had only the vaguest exposure to -- as in I know some key trigger words that mean you should use it ("I think that..." the next verb will probably need it) and how to form it in present and one of the pasts.   And that's it.  So frig.   Needed both google and text book to guess when I should perhaps use that and remind me how exactly to make it happen.

Sheesh.

So yeah - my easy challenge?   Took almost 3h to translate 7 paragraphs.  And yes, I'm stubborn enough that I was determined to make it through.  And my brain is so spun now, I basically sent it to my teacher with a "I don't know what just happened, can you help?" lol.  We'll see if I get a response ;).  It wasn't actual homework and is definitely out of the realm of appropriate level (the class I'm in hasn't learned any subjunctive yet) so she doesn't deserve to have to correct the disaster it likely is.   But I suspect she'll be more amused than anything, so we'll see.

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