Learning italian continues to be a challenge, although in the past couple of weeks my friend Alanna almost fell off her chair twice when she heard me semi-competently communicating my thoughts in italian. She is much more fluent than I, and usually teases me about my attempts to speak the language.
When I first arrived in Florence I put a lot of effort into studying italian each week, and then I just got lazier and lazier. The language is just so hard to learn that I can easily come up with something else to do that is much more enjoyable. I have heard from so many people that it took them years to be able to speak italian fluently, so I figured what is the rush. Going to another beautiful italian museum still counts as immersing myself in the culture, doesn't it?
My plan to take a more relaxed approach to learning italian went to hell and a handbag when I met a special friend who is fluent in both french and italian, but speaks very little english. When I said I was from Canada he got excited thinking that I spoke French. I had to explain to him that many Canadians, including me, in fact don't speak fluent French. I could see the excitement in his eyes shift to puzzlement. I could tell he was thinking about how he would be able to communicate with me. It has been a challenge. When he sends me a text in italian I am able to refer to my trusty Google translate if I am not sure what he is saying, but I cannot have Google translate at my side at all times.
I remember the first time he picked me up I felt like I was an unsure 16 year old again. I was talking to my friend Laura on Skype about what I thought were our plans for him to take me up to Piazza Michelangelo in his car, but I was not really sure because of the language barrier. Laura and I made the plan that I would Skype her when I got home to let her know that I got home safe. Like a caring friend she sat up waiting for the "I am home safe" Skype call. I gave her his identifying information just in case she did not get the call. It is weird because with having a language barrier I just did not feel quite as safe as I usually do. I had never given thought to the fact that our ability to use language is so strongly tied to one's self confidence and sense of safety. At home I had pepper spray in my purse as a safety precaution. The best I could do here on short notice was to put a small bottle of room spray in my purse. Laura and I laughed as I suggested that spraying the air freshener in a person's eyes would at least give me a few minutes to get away if needed. Looking back my fear was ridiculous. My friend was a perfect gentleman and we went to a beautiful spot where we, and hundreds of other people, enjoyed the night view of Florence.
My friend and I continue to work on being able to better communicate with one another. Sometimes I find myself starting off a sentence in italian, and then I slip into french in desperation to try and convey a thought. While my friend does speak some english he for the most part insists that I speak italian as after all that is the only way I am going to truly learn the language; being forced to speak it. There have been times when we have had to take out the english/italian dictionary. The problem is at our age our eyes are so bad that we have trouble reading the small print. It is far too early in this friendship for me to bring out the granny reading glasses.
The other night my friend was over for the evening. We were actually getting by pretty well in our communication and then it happened; I had to communicate a thought and I knew that there was no way that I would find the words in either italian or french. So I left his warm arms and went to the living room and got my laptop. It seemed reasonable to me to use Google translate at this moment. My friend patiently read the translation of what I wrote, and then laughed and told me to put the laptop away. He once again told me that I will never learn italian if I don't force myself to learn it. Of course he said this all in italian. The next morning I got my italian books out again.
A few evenings later Alanna and I met up with my friend. He knows that she speaks more fluent italian than me. We weren't together two minutes and even with my horrible italian I could tell that he was telling Alanna about me bringing the laptop to bed. I had to sit back and listen to the two of them in fluent italian make fun of me. We all did have a good laugh though. I did end up conceding that a laptop is a romance killer. While Carrie's Mr. Big was tolerant of her laptop, it is abundantly clear that my Mr. Big is not. I sent my italian teacher an email signing back up for italian class in September.
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