Spanish Home: Run the Household

How to play: this is a language game wearing a Spanish house. You are Mamá, and you are not running the household — the house runs itself: she walks to the stove, the sink, the washing machine, the ironing board and the medicine cabinet on her own, and potters about sweeping and tending the aparador when nothing is wanted. What you do is read Spanish and answer two questions.

Take as long as you like. There is no time limit and nothing to beat the clock to: a day is 10 questions, and it ends the moment you answer the last one. One question is up at a time, and the whole house stands still whenever anybody is talking — nobody walks, nobody asks for anything and nothing moves — so you can read every line as slowly as you need. If a row of answers is up, choosing one starts the house again; if there is no row — she says she is on it, somebody grumbles, somebody says thank you — tap the play button on the speech bubble when you have finished reading it. How long the day took is recorded on the end-of-day card, and your fastest run at each level is kept.

1 — Which job? Somebody says what is wanted: La camisa de Miguel está muy arrugada. — “Miguel’s shirt is terribly creased.” Pick the chore off the row along the bottom. ⚠ The wrong answers are not random, they are the mistakes worth making once: preparar un té make tea against preparar un biberón make up a bottle — one verb, two objects — and lavar la ropa wash, tender la ropa hang out, planchar la ropa iron, all three taking la ropa — one object, three verbs. Read half a phrase and it is a coin toss. Pick the wrong job and she is not stopped: she does it, sees it is not what was asked for, and starts again — which costs her the walk and the work, in front of you.

2 — Who is it for? She finishes and asks herself ¿Para quién es esta camisa? The answer is the name in the same sentence, and the row offers the household: Papá Dad, Mamá Mum, Abuelo Grandad, Abuela Grandma, hermano mayor big brother, hermana menor little sister and el bebé the baby. Take it to the wrong person and they hand it back, kindly, and she walks on to the right one.

⚠ The family words ARE the lesson. Spanish has one yo for everybody, so it is the FAMILY WORD in the sentence that says who is meant. Grandma is Abuela, Dad is Papá, the big brother is hermano mayor. When the sentence names somebody, the answer is that person, and knowing the seven family words is the whole of the second read. Requests carry por favor or a softening anda too — leaving them off is the commonest way a foreigner sounds curt while saying nothing wrong.

The Level row is which level of the Home lesson tonight's day is — the same levels the course wall is divided into, numbered the same way. The Difficulty row is how much of each line is written: Beginner writes the say-it-like-this and the English under every line, Intermediate the say-it alone, Advanced the Spanish with nothing under it. The house fills in five stages over the lesson's early levels: level 1 is the two children and the school run, level 2 brings Papá and his breakfast before work, level 3 Abuela and her tea and medicine, level 4 el bebé and the washing, and level 5 Abuelo and supper for the whole house — and past level 5 the house holds at its fullest while the lesson keeps going. From level 3 what was said fades a few seconds later — tap whoever said it to hear it again, free but for the time, which is the one tap left on the floor. The children go to school and come back, and Papá goes to work and comes home before supper.

You cannot lose a day. Nothing is timed and nobody gives up, so nothing ends the day except answering its last question. What varies is your time and how many you got right.