Sunday, May 12, 2024

A second thought on learning Spanish

A couple of months ago, I ran across a story about how Thomas Jefferson claimed that Spanish was so easy he’d learned it in 19 days on a voyage to Europe.

Jefferson said he’d boarded the ship with Don Quixote and a grammar. Anyone could do it.

Of course, Jefferson was telling a stretcher, as the country folks used to say. (The material being stretched is the truth.)

But, if you’re wondering about yesterday’s note on Juan Goytisolo’s short story La Guardia, I had to try it, even though I knew better.

• Source: For the original note on Jefferson’s claim, “About learning Spanish,’ March 15, 2024.

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