2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Thursday, July 09, 2009

Ci siamo!

It's been a quiet week on Lake Humanities Researcher (apologies to Garrison Keilor).

Every morning this week I hop on my bike and ride into Carlton for an intensive Italian language course. My long service leave starts in a few weeks, and I've always thought long service leave was a good time to learn something new. And because we have booked a few weeks holiday in Italy in September, and because I'll be in Siena for the Chaucer congress in 2010, and because Joel is learning, and because I love opera, and because I want to read Dante e Boccaccio in Italiana, there I am!

There are eleven in our group: they include an opthalmic surgeon who is taking up a job in Forli next year; a group of middle aged women like me who are going to Italy on holiday; a New Zealand vulcanologist, also going to do some research in Italy; and three teenagers from two different Italian families whose fathers speak Italian, but who have never learned.

Everything they say about studying more languages making the next one easier is absolutely true. My Latin and French aren't particularly strong (especially my Latin); and my French is much more readerly than conversational, but this background in romance languages certainly makes Italian feel familiar. I could hear it spoken every day in Melbourne if I walked down the right streets and went to the right cafes. These classes really put the emphasis on conversation, though, so it's a very different world from medieval languages.

When we are doing grammatical work, I feel perfectly at home, so that spending a lot of time on the difference between masculine and feminine definite and indefinite articles sometimes drives me crazy. Just learn the forms and move on, I think to myself! But repeating and repeating, in tiny fragments of conversation in groups does eventually help me put sentences together. And here's the thing: there are people in the class who've never learned the difference between first and third person, or who have never had to grapple with gendered nouns and adjectives, but whose ear is far better than mine, and whose confidence in conversation outstrips mine, too.

But I am keen to keep going, and have arranged to share a small group lesson with Kay, my fellow student. I'm going to practise writing a bit. And can I just say: I'm doing this without checking my books. I'll correct my mistakes in bold type...

Ciao, mi chiamo Stephania. Sto molto bene, grazie. Ho un gatto bruno; lei si chiama Mima. Lei ha diciotto anni, e ho cinquante-uno anni, e sono sempre contenta... cioe, noi siamo sempre contente. Amiamo mangiare il pesce.

E voi? Come state?

7 comments:

Elsewhere007 said...

I think you're a bit of a swot!

I always regret not ever learning anoother language properly, a particularly Australian predicament.

Anonymous said...

Ophthalmic, Stephanie.

Anonymous said...

On ophthalmic,I should confess that I'm David's stepmother and Brian's wife!

This old world is a new world said...

Yes, I'm a swot: my secret is out.

Ophthalmic. I'm sure that's right. But it's such an odd word: both versions look weird to me now. That's another word I have problems with: weird? wierd? Also siege/seige.

Hmm. David's stepmother and Brian's wife? Just give me a moment to file through my mental rolodex of possibilities here...

Anonymous said...

Matthews is the link: your Manchester colleague and my stepson; your Academy of the Humanities colleague and my husband. We were both speakers at the conference Brian organised ...

This old world is a new world said...

Of course! Blindingly obvious now! Good to see you on line, J.

Kathleen said...

Ciao Stephanie, che bello che studi l'italiano! Anch'io ho dei gatti: una si chiama "Benigna" (ma non lo e') e l'altra si chiama Scout.

Cerco di convincere il mio ragazzo che deve seguire un corso d'italiano anche lui! E lui mi dice che io devo studiare il latino...

(Word verification = lusca. Sounds v. italian but is apparently a Caribbean sea monster...yes, also a swot, I checked.)