Revolutionary Spanish

Hola compañeros, well it looks like it finally may actually happen - the Cambridge Revolutionary Spanish Group may soon become a reality for all those keen on learning Spanish in order to aid the overthrow of the oligarchy, Yankee imperialism and racismo.

My previous attempts at learning Spanish have been hampered by my nascent laziness and skinflintitude. But this time will be different and I've already covered my part of the barracks in little post-it notes informing me that the door is a puerta that soldados are not to be trusted because they are homicidas and the like.

One of the difficulties I had at school with learning languages, apart from the fact I was simply *at school*, was we never learned to say anything I could remotely imagine myself ever *wanting* to say.

M. B may be the pater, his wife the mater, his son the garçon and Toto est la chien but apart from reinforcing an inherently unequal patriarchal nuclear family, where the son is only one step up from the dog, who cares? I also did Latin (I know) where Caecilius est pater, Metella's the Mum, Quintus the son followed in quick succession by Cerberus. Perhaps they both ate their dinner off the floor, who knows.

I gave up French when I was 14 (although, surprisingly, I remembered a fair bit of it the last time I was in France being able to order sausage and wine and ask for the way to the social center) and I achieved a memorable "Grade U" at Latin, which apparently means I got less than 5%. I mean how did that happen? I knew I was crap at it, but less than 5%!?! I mean, I came out of the exam and told my mate Neil "I think I did alright at that." Anyway, I digress.

So the theory is that we get hold of a job lot of the Venezuelan Constitution and similar documents to learn Spanish through investigating and talking about things we are actually interested in. The theory holds true for others too I guess. It would be great to see the local hairdressers set up "The Latin Fringe", and the neighbourhood polyamorist enclave launch "Spanish for Lovers" but that will be their responsibility to make that happen, not mine.

We've yet to firm up all the details but we already have willing students, potential tutors and a copy of "Viva La Quince Brigada" to start us off. Any Spanish dictionaries, textbooks or just Spanish language papers and novels would be gratefully accepted to help kick start the group.