Franz and Emil

I've just realised, on checking back, with "Little Men", that I got Franz and Emil the wrong way round: Franz and not Emil is the elder brother, depicted as a sterotypical German of that era, "big, blond and bookish, also very domestic, amiable and musical". (Ironic to think how the condescending views of the Anglosphere about Germans morphed from the old trope of 'hardworking, simple and sentimental' to that of 'Teutonic stock villain'...)

Since I only have *one* Franz/Emil equivalent character in "Little Gentlemen" --I feel there is a limit to how many German-speakers I can credibly introduce into the household!-- I could in theory arbitrarily decide to call him "Emil", as I have been doing. But since I wanted to have him as the one who is sixteen and basically an adult (in Alcott's book he is functioning as an assistant teacher, and back in the seventeenth century he would definitely be verging on manhood; Raoul de Bragelonne takes part in his first battle at fifteen) it makes more sense to avoid confusion by using the name of the older brother. I have thus gone back and altered all the occurrences, and will have to mentally adjust my concept of the character after thinking of him as 'Emil' for the last month.

He was writing, he writes, he has finished writing

This new batch of Russian lessons are definitely different in style and emphasis (and, alas, in sound quality) from the preceding ones. A much higher focus on formal grammar (or at least verbs) rather than the conversational/lifestyle vocabulary of the previous batch, I think, and in consequence much simpler sentence structure. It gives me the feeling of having skipped back to the starting lessons... until I get asked to repeat back the dialogue, at which point I realise that while I have a perfect passive understanding of it, I don't know the different tenses and constructions accurately enough to be able to reproduce them on request, and flounder :-(
https://youtu.be/BWmZP1SJLZU
"This is Petya. He is writing a letter. He was writing yesterday and he is writing today. Now finally he has finished writing his letter" -- that sounds like my sort of letter... or email, for that matter :-D

(Wow -- Russian students had to bed down with *three* people sleeping in one small room, and get up at seven a.m.? I thought Americans and their mandatory 'room-mates' had it bad!
On the other hand they get a sizeable selection of savoury breakfasts. Except for Lida, who apparently just wants cake :-p And yes, she is *gorgeous*...)

( Captioning )