English lesson no 1

Today we met with our English teacher, David, at Kullzénska Caféet in Kalmar. We had a cup of tea/coffee and a nice chat. Both Kristina and I believe we are in for a very nice autumn together with David. We’ll meet mainly Friday mornings but also a few Wednesday evenings. Altogether we’ll come together 10 times and two hours every occasion. Today we covered a number of topics amongst others the title of the wife. How does one translate “församlingspedagog” into English? I suggested “Parish Pedagogue”. We had a nice laugh when David told us that “pedagogue” has another connotation than we thought. In our “Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English” the explanation is:

A teacher who cares too much about rules

David used the Swedish word “pedant” as a possible synonym. After this nobody will describe my wife as a pedagogue, at least if they know her and this explanation. Kristina herself felt that the word educator could be useful. Parish Educator sounds quite OK to me. So, we look forward to many more revelations. And we are so pleased to have David as our educator or teacher or trainer. But he is not our pedagogue.