I am so glad I looked up the definition of "Indian Summer" online before I called what we are experiencing an Indian Summer, all 10 of my blog readers would have been horrified to know I guessed the definition.
We are experiencing the opposite of an Indian summer. Today it was in the mid 70's and windy. Much to the bruising of my ego, I think if I actually went outside, I might have needed a jacket. (Bruising because I refuse to wear a jacket in August no matter what the temp) We live in a city where the temperature is below freezing for three months out of the year. I admit, there are much much colder places in the world, but for this girl from Texas, that's cold.
KB, myself and most other foreigners I know would consider today "cool." However as expected our language tutor came in today and declared the weather was "very cold." We have learned that the locals refer to the weather as either very hot or very cold. Everything is "very" and if it is not very hot, then it must be very cold - nothing in between. I think there is a wide gap between these two descriptions of temperature. Lots of other descriptors could be used like hot, warm, cool or even just cold.
Our language tutor, Kitty, has a great sense of humor. I said (in the local language, so please excuse it if sounds a little Kindergarden-ish), "Kitty, three months every year the water is frozen on the ground. That is 'very cold.' Today is just cool." She thought about it for a second and started laughing. She then rephrased herself. "Today is a very cool." I guess they just cannot get away from using "very."
As a side note and in Kitty's defense. This language actually uses the word "very" a lot. When someone asks you how you are doing, you cannot just say "good." You must say "very good," or it is grammatically incorrect. In the beginning had a difficult time with using "very" to describe things when we did not feel a "very" was necessary. We are getting more used to it though, and I will probably embarrass myself when I overuse the word while speaking English in the US.
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