Even more on learning Spanish

The sentence-fluency process I wrote about a few weeks ago hasn't been getting much elbow room over the last few weeks, but I have continued learning Psalm 139 in Spanish - I already know it in English, so I've got a framework to start with. I'm up to verse 17 as of today. This has been an ongoing process since before the other (fluency) thing started, and since it's along the same lines, it's worth continuing with. 

The most difficult part is remembering how the verbs and pronouns go; they vary greatly from phrase to phrase in the Psalm. But more difficult is recognising the various irregular 'states' of the verbs - Spanish is far more full of irregular verbs than English. Most of these are fairly common words that are used frequently, verbs like hacer - to make, or do - or dicer - to say. Or worse: ser - to be - and ir - to go which are both the same in the oddly-named preterit tense: the tense that describes something that's done once and then finished. Here they're the equivalent of the English I was and I went tenses. These are irregular in English, but like most English verbs, don't change much from person to person ('person' as in I, we, you etc).

I assume Spanish speakers get used to using the same words for I was and I went - the context will no doubt make it clear. But it's hard to imagine English speakers using I was, for instance, for both I was and I went. I was downstairs when you called doesn't quite mean the same thing as I went downstairs when you called. But I could be making a mountain out of a molehill here, not yet being sufficiently au fait with the nuances of Spanish - or - No estoy suficientemente familiarizado con los matices del español. (That's Mr Google's translation; hopefully he's got it right, but it looks reasonable.)

Anyway, all this is leading to the following point: I decided to do something about the verb situation - dealing with the irregular ones, that is - and so I've started using the Anki cards to help me. I've taken several irregular preterit verbs (or preterite, as Wikipedia has it) and listed them in different ways on the cards. So I might focus on three of these verbs on one card, and list the first person singular for each in the answer. That kind of thing. Some of them are relatively familiar in their irregular forms (after all we use the past tense a lot in any language) so I recognise them. But remembering them is another matter. However, I've only been at this process for two or three days, and it's starting to come together. 

By the way, I got the various irregular verbs from The Red Pocket Book of Spanish Verbs, a book I found - if I remember rightly - at the Hospice shop in Dunedin. They have two shops at virtually the same location: one a normal op shop and the other nothing but books, mostly in good condition. And in categories. And in alphabetical order of authors! Wonderful work, Dunedin Hospice Shop!!

You don't have to have a red pocket to put the book in; it's the cover that's red. It tells us on the cover that it conjugates 333 verbs and does it fully. Yes, I can believe that. But in order to do so in a pocket-sized book (pocket as in large pocket) it has reduced the print to almost miniscule. I can just read it and no more. On a good day. With lots of sunshine. 

This copy used to belong to someone called Jack Bermingham. 
Thanks, Jack, for giving it a second life at my place.
I hope your eyesight didn't deteriorate as a result of the font size!