National TV film on us
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Author Archives: Georgina Howard
Our Basque grandparents (Amatxi and Atautxi)
Here is a picture of Amatxi and Atautxi, as I have always known them; the ‘grandparents’ who adopted me when I arrived in Ameztia 10 years ago and helped me to bring up Marion when she made an appearance 3 … Continue reading
The Making of the RTVE DESTINO ESPAÑA Documentary:
Wallflowers and Stephen Fry! When I was contacted by RTVE, National Spanish TV, to do a documentary on my life for their programme, Destino España, the natural wallflower in me was nowhere to be found! (See the video on the … Continue reading
Business with the Basques in Northern Spain
Any article entitled ´Working with the Spanish’ will get into stormy waters if it attempts blanket coverage of the Iberian Peninsula and this is no truer than for the proud Basque people who inhabit the rugged coasts of the North. … Continue reading
What Lozanov has to do with our Spanish house parties (and in defence of the comment ‘Mummy, your job is just like having a party!’)
Twenty years ago, when Jan, the Polish sandwich boy, visited my PR office in Canary Wharf neither he nor I had any idea of how our brief exchanges would sow the seeds for the Spanish language courses I run in … Continue reading
A Portrait of an English Mother in a Basque Pyrenean Sheep Shed. Autumn 2005
I dug this paragraph out from my writings years ago when Marion was just 1 year old and it reminds me of many of those tiny cultural differences that I suppose I now take for granted. We wake up reeking of the … Continue reading
Why do the British suffer so acutely from Linguaphobia?
On my travels I meet a stream of intrepid Brits. They trek the Himalayas in thunder storms and raft the Zambezi with the crocodiles and yet, no matter how extrovert and gregarious they are by nature, one obstacle seems always … Continue reading
Posted in Learning Spanish in Spain
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The Basque House – a mixed blessing.
Over the past decades I have come to realise just how important a role the Basque farmhouse (etxea) plays in the Basque culture. When the final roof tile is put into place, a sprig of bay leaves is tucked into … Continue reading
Life, as I never knew it, on my neighbour’s farm
My dear neighbour and friend, Sagrario, is 47 years old. She is more or less of my generation – or so you would think until you heard the stories of her childhood. Only then do I realise the true extent … Continue reading
Mummy, I can’t speak English! (The languages used between bilinguals).
On Friday, I sent an e-mail to François Grosjean, Emeritus Professor of Psycholinguistics, from the University of Neuchatel, about my 6-year-old daughter, Marion, and her tri-lingualism. Within hours François had emailed me a very personal reply of which I was … Continue reading
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