Learning Italian - parte uno

There's a wonderful book on writing - it actually extends into one's life, actually - by Gail Sher called "One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers". Her first order of business is to require the writing student (me) to write about the same subject each day for 14 days straight. I chose "Learning Italian" as my subject. Here's the first of several posts, excerpts from this series.

10-11-06

If I keep at it, day after day, reading and understanding in the moment what I am reading, then the knowledge will come. This is what my heart yearns to be true – that simple mechanics can convert me, transform me. And so I do it.

Then I go out. It generally starts well – my Italian conversational counterpart, usually a store clerk or similar, recognizes my handicap and talks a little slower. I lean forward, getting my ear closer to the words so that with greater clarity in hearing them I will enjoy greater clarity in understanding. I nod in acknowledgement of the general concepts being expressed. This encourages the speaker, and soon they are talking at their normal speed – rapid-fire – and using words that they’d use with their family and friends. They step out of their “speak simply for the straniero” role and they get into their normal persona.

Little do they know what a roller-coaster ride this causes the listener – me. I run after their words, zig-zagging as if following random clues, my nodding continues mechanically, without thought, and I cling, fingers on the cliff-edge, holding on with the last ounce of my strength.

And then it gives – my grasp slips, and I’m gone, plunging into the deep abyss, hopelessly dazed, knotted in confusion, and soon the speaker sees the blank, faraway look in my eyes, and they know they lost me a while ago. Then comes the smile, sympathetic and with just the slightest, friendliest touch of frustration, and they once again switch personas. Back we go and start again.

In this moment, I know that mechanics have failed me. With it comes a tinge of despair – how will I ever master it, when, in the heat of battle, I forget that “I am” is simply “sono”.

“You have to live it,” says Claudia, and she’s right. Countless times I’ve noticed errors in her vocabulary, her verb forms, but she presses on, and for her, the conversational counterpart doesn’t have to switch roles. They engage, they flow, and the conversation goes with them.

This is what speaking Italian is about. It’s not mechanical. Aside from the hand-speak, there’s an energy that’s established at the outset as part of the conversational contract, and the participants both follow it and lead it. “Going with the flow” might be the cliché way of expressing it, and it’s true. It comes only from getting out there and doing it. The mechanics have their place, but the real knowing comes from immersion in the conversational currents.