The weeks keep getting better and better. I am making more and more friends and everyday my Spanish improves a tiny bit. I can understand my teachers more and I can form sentences without major mistakes. Although some days I feel like I take one step forward and then take two steps backward with my Spanish, I know that overall I have improved so much and I have two months to make it better.
I am really enjoying my course on Spanish history, not because it is in English but because history really interests me. Recently, we talked about King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Castile y Leon. They were each rulers of the two Christian Kingdoms in what is now modern day Spain. Their marriage unified the two kingdoms. This is where it gets tricky though. They rule their respective kingdoms only. Their children can rule both but if one dies before the other, they no longer have any input in the other kingdom. When Isabel died, she named her daughter Joana the Mad (a story for another time) as her heir and made Fernando regent until Joana's son Carlos was old enough to take the throne. However, Fernando wanted control over the kingdoms and he didn't want to have Joana on the throne because he didn't find her competent. So he started to plot against her. And get this, Joana's sister Catherine was the the first wife of Henry VII of England, the king who created his own church to divorce her and had a habit of beheading his other wives. Joana's grandson Felipe II then marries Henry and Catherine's daughter, Bloody Mary. European Politics: A Giant Sitcom.
Fun Facts:
Christopher Columbus was an Italian Explorer who was sent by Isabel and Fernando to the Americas. He never discovered the mainland, just the islands of the Caribbean and the Bahamas.
Spanish has two words for the word "for." They are "por" and "para."
Spaniard cannot pronounce certain sounds in English because they do not exist in Spanish. Some of these letters are "j", "i", and "w".
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