Trying to find the right words
I use simple phrases, to be sure, and no doubt butcher some, but I am gaining the confidence to approach strangers and ask questions — something I never thought I would do.
“A different language is a different vision of life.” — Federico Fellini
An old man approached me in a narrow cobblestone street the other day and spoke rapidly and at length — and with evident emotion — in Italian.
I was so startled that I nearly blurted out in Italian: “Sorry, I don’t speak English.”
Instead, I managed to say “Sono inglese — Canadese” (I am English — Canadian), and he understood and looked at me sorrowfully and continued on his way. (I think he really wanted someone to talk to.)
LEARNING
When you are trying to learn a new language, there are days when you don’t feel like you speak any tongue well; the words get all tangled up in your brain — with English, bits of French and Italian all chest-bumping each other.
There is nothing quite so humbling as finding yourself shockingly inarticulate in a different land.
Phrases that flow with ease in your own language seem impossibly difficult to summon in another.
When you’re travelling, many of your interactions are, of necessity, perfunctory and on the fly: Where’s the train for such-and-such? Which platform do I need? Which way to the supermarket?
PREPARING FOR A TRIP
My husband and I are in southern Italy. Our first trip to this country was nearly 16 years ago.
At the time, we learned a few nouns and simple phrases in preparation: please, thank you, do you have a table for two?
We really needn’t have worried. We were in Tuscany then, where tourism is a mainstay, with many menus and signs provided in English and German as well as Italian, and where many people working in the tourist trade are multilingual.
On a subsequent Italy trip to other regions well-frequented by tourists, the situation was much the same.
DETERMINED TO MASTER ITALIAN
But I dreamt of having an actual conversation in Italian, to understand and to be understood; to make a connection — no matter how fleeting.
Nearly four years ago — inspired by my nephew, who was doing the same — I started trying to learn Italian using a free language app on my iphone. For 15 to 20 minutes a day, religiously, I started with the basics: red, blue, mother, father, banana, tomato, cat.
Slowly — lentamente — I learned phrases with a little more complexity, sometimes perplexingly random:
“They make ice cream in an industrial facility.”
“He has an old train conductor’s uniform.”
“In September we drink her beer.” Eventually, I finished all the Italian lessons offered on one app and moved on to another.
For a time I corresponded in Italian by email with a generous Saltwire Network reader from Nova Scotia, but was clearly out of my depth.
Still, I persisted in my daily lessons.
GAINING CONFIDENCE
It would be a much more satisfying ending to this column to say that
I am now fluent in Italian and can discuss the finer points of the latest, newly-discovered work by Leonardo da Vinci with ease.
That’s far from the case.
But what I can do, as I am learning day by day, is make myself understood here, in a part of Italy where not everyone speaks English.
I use simple phrases, to be sure, and no doubt butcher some, but I am gaining the confidence to approach strangers and ask questions — something I never thought I would do.
I’ve asked for a table for two, ordered wine from the Puglian region, complimented food in a restaurant, told our host the hairdryer wasn’t working in our apartment (and thanked her for her kindness in quickly replacing it) and obtained throat lozenges in a drugstore.
I’m not quite ready for an intellectual discussion of "War and Peace," but I’m making progress.
LIVE AND LEARN
My point is that as long as you are able, it can be fun and fulfilling to try and learn a new language. To see the spark of comprehension and appreciation in someone’s eyes when you attempt to speak to them where they are is worth all the monotony of months of repeating the Italian words for brown, horse, bread.
Besides, the old expression in English sounds lovelier in Italian: Viviamo e impariamo.
We live and learn. At least I hope so.