You should all know by now that I often start with something completely different ....but it all turns out to be relevant to learning Spanish ......................eventually. So, first of all, a Mandelbrot Set !
Well, there's been some discussion on the radio about the length of the UK coastline..... apparently different books give wildly different figures. The reason for this is obvious to us mathematicians. It's quite a problem deciding on what exactly is "The UK coastline" for a start, but that's not the main problem. No. The real problem is much deeper.
You could start by walking round it, counting the miles as you go. But then you might try to make it more "accurate" by going round it with a giant ball of string, looping around all the bumps. That would give you a much bigger result. But then you would notice that each little bump had its own set of smaller bumps ... so next time you could go round with a hand lens and add in all the extra bits. But while you were using your hand lens, you would realise that there are even tinier bumps that you need a microscope to measure .. and so it goes on and on, in an infinite regress into madness. In truth, you could never finish your task.
I often get the feeling that languages are much the same .... you can learn the basic stuff, memorise 5000 words, know most of the verb endings .... but then there's the next 5000 words, and the rest of the verb ending to be stored away. Eventually you get up to 20000 words, all the endings ... then you realise that you hardly know any idioms, and any slang expressions throw you off course straight away....so you learn lots of them, and then you find their are even deeper subtleties with all the possibilities with prepositions, word order, the many exceptions to grammatical rules, verbs that have multiple and various shades of meaning, the inifinite subtleties of the imperfect/preterite and the subjunctive ... and on top of that there's the constant changes of word meanings, neologisms .... it never stops. Just like the coastline, there's always more.
But hey ! Don't worry about it.
Even native speakers don't know everything !
But at least now you know why this blog is called " Learn Spanish in 88 Years"
And the really good news is ....all languages are roughly equally complex.
Phew ... what a relief .. and now, to show you how stunning and beautiful Spanish is, here's Supersubmarina and, yes, "Supersubmarina" .... I've put this on before, but it's worth another outing I think ....