Learning English

Art Towne with Baby Daniel

Art Towne was a tall, spare, quiet man. But it was easy to be around him. The quiet times with him were comfortable, and when he talked to me, he spoke clearly and slowly. After Gary left, I cleaned up the kitchen and Art made himself comfortable in the living room. I joined him there and together we watched the news on TV. Or at least, I tried to watch!

I thought I spoke English pretty well, but now I hardly understood anything the newscaster said. He spoke way too quickly, and the kind of news he brought was strange. I didn’t know anything about this country and especially not about this part of Colorado.

So I made it my goal to learn English as quickly as I could. And I was lucky. The next day, Art went to work and I was alone in the house. I surfed the TV channels when I came upon something familiar. Star Trek! I had watched that in Germany almost every week, and I could remember the story lines. So every afternoon at 2:00 PM I turned on the TV and watched Star Trek. I loved listening to Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk in English, and I could tell my understanding of spoken English was quickly improving. However, it still took me almost the whole time my husband was away to learn to understand television news.