Learning the Language

So my two hour Italian class hasn’t been quite as enthralling as I hoped although it is getting much better. I decided I needed to take other steps to learn the language. I have many valuable resources at hand… (obviously) since I am living in Italy. At home, my mama continues to speak English to us. I wish she wouldn’t but that is partially because I am tired of understanding what she says and I think there would be a nice peace to only picking up on a few of her Italian words and phrases. Plus my roommate is in Italian IV and we speak about the same amount of Italian at home so I want learn more from her. I’ll get around to doing this sometime…

I can speak in all Italian when I am at a restaurant. How shocking: I have food and ordering terms down. When the waiter asks me a question, I am usually able to answer even if it takes me a second. So I am pretty comfortable speaking with daily occurrences. I am just struggling a little bit with deeper conversation—which is when you actually get to know people. Syracuse puts on a “Spazione Conversationale”—I am not sure what that means but they invite “young” people who are learning English to talk with us learning Italian. I went on Tuesday and there were about twenty Syracuse students and about fifteen Italians. I used young with quotations because I would be the average age was twenty five. Not that is not young, but it isn’t high school/college aged as advertised. Haha. Spazione helped a little bit but it was just like talking to any old Italian on the street. I also started off the evening with a young Italian telling me I had a beautiful face and asking me if I was Mexican (I get this a lot). When I replied no, he asked “what was I”. I usually don’t like answering this question because I wonder about the intent but you know Italians have different cultural values blah blah so I just said I was half black and half white. Then here it comes…
“No, not HALF black. Maybe a quarter?”
“No, my mom is full black.”
“No, no maybe your mom is ½ black? You must be whiter than you are black.”
“Nope, I am half black. You know we come in all shades and colors just like you people”
I think he got the hint there because he stopped talking to me. I am not using this example as anything against Italians because this has happened more than once in America I just want to highlight the moronic and ignorant tendencies of people who claim to know more about your own race than you yourself do. I mean it is quite ridiculous when you think about it. Do you ever ask that can’t really be your dad, he is just too tall, are you sure your mom wasn’t fooling around with the milk man?

Anyway, back to learning Italian. My final and most valuable resource is the vital Italian friend who speaks English but is obviously more comfortable with Italian. I learned this from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love where she and her friend Sophie have twin Italian boys from Rome who helped them learn the language and culture and eventually develop a friendship. If living in Italy, I strongly advise to find un ragazzo italiano (an Italian boy) to help you learn. I met mine last week at a Beatles’ cover band show. He is great, makes fun of my Italian a lot, but not in a bad way but better described as an inspiration to learn. His English is pretty good so we mainly talk in that but insert some basic Italian phrases every once in a while. Also, when we go out I’ll learn new vocabulary! On Sunday, we went to apertivo at Kitsch (a restaurant/bar) which is near my house. Apertivo is an Italian custom of drinks and appetizers before dinner—except you usually skip dinner in young people’s case. It is 7.50 Euro (about $11 American) for the appetizers and then we had red wine for fifteen euro a piece—but it was really good wine. Apertivo is really fun the bar was packed but we sat on the outside patio watching the people walk by. We mainly talked about boring things—my family, when I told him my brother worked for Microsoft he said “what’s the word, ‘nerd’?” I was like you have no idea I am such a bigger nerd than my big brother. I also tried to explain what a sorority was…which was more complicated that I thought it would be. I used something like a group of girls in a college but also in colleges all over the country. But there all my best friends and we do community service and umm plan parties.

Yesterday, we went to the Italian cinema which was quite the cultural experience. We saw “Burn After Reading” with Brad Pitt and George Clooney of course it was dubbed in Italian. First, we ate pizza well actually I drank water because I just had one of Mama’s massive meals. He had pizza with french fries on top—can you say, ew? I did try it, and I thought it was weird. We studied for my Italian quiz the next day on verbs, adjectives, and describing an apartment. It was fun conjugating verbs over pizza. I also learned new vocabulary of the movie theater. The movie theater was huge with twenty four screens. Italian cinemas work a little differently than their American equivalent because when you buy your ticket you get assigned a seat. It was strange because it was so orderly and efficient and therefore unitalian to me. I saw some interesting previews for Mamma Mia and Changeling (Angelina Jolie). American movies usually take a few months to come out here (Tropic Thunder comes out in October). Once the movie started, I was surprised that I actually could follow along but when I would get lost I just requested a brief summary translation. But, what women really pay attention to what George Clooney and Brad Pitt are saying anyway? The movie was a little weird. I want to see it in English just to clarify some parts of the plot.

Anyway, I aced my Italian quiz so I was glad I chose the less conventional way of studying. Also, just a fun fact about where I am writing this post. I am at an Italian Laundromat. I got a little stain on my sheets (homework in bed is hard) and I knew my mama would freak out so I snuck out of the house with my sheets shoved in my backpack pretending I was going to school when I actually went to the Laundromat. I had to sneak out because even though she would freak out if she saw the stain she would freak out even more if I attempted to wash it. The great Italian paradox. But, being me, and wanting to solve my problems on my own, I decided deception was the way to go. And so far, it works!