Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
At which point Daisy Vera interrupts the song to ask if John Lennon is an atheist. Which makes me incredibly happy, because she must be understanding the lyrics.
Level 1 has been working on contractions with "to be" (there's, it's) and prepositions of location (above, below) so this song is perfect. It also brings up yet another example of, "Ok, in Spanish you say... but in English, there are two words for that." In this case:
cielo = sky / Heaven
More:
esperar = to wait / to hope
decir = to tell / to say
casa = house / home
If we believe in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, these differences are important; they dictate our experience in the world. In English, we can wait even when hope is gone, we can tell people things without saying a word, and we can sit in the house and miss home. We can deny Heaven without the sky falling. So maybe we should change the lyrics: Imagine there's no Heaven/It's easy if you speak English.
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