Was It Something I Said?

There are four elements to using a language: reading, writing, listening, speaking. For me, reading is the easiest. Writing is a little easier than speaking. Listening is the hardest. Fluent speakers of any language tend to speak quickly, not pausing much – if at all – between words. In Italian this effect is intensified because most Italian words end with a vowel, making them run right into the next word. If the next word begins with a vowel, the two words seem to blur together. Italian uses a lot of contractions, often formed in ways that seem unusual to English speakers. And because there are often six or seven ways to say the same little word, depending on the gender, number, and spelling of the words it accompanies, it is often six or seven times harder to pick out which word is which. English Grammar for Students of Italian points out that “in Italian, unlike English, the form of most words is determined by their relationship to other words in the sentence.” When I learn an adjective, I learn four ways to say it. When I learn a verb, I learn six ways to say it (and that’s just in the present tense). Prepositions take on many different forms depending on the words around them and their place in the sentence. When I’m reading, each word stands out as a separate entity, and I can take a little time to translate each sentence (or each segment of a sentence if necessary) before moving on. When someone is speaking, the syllables flow together with no time for thinking, and I’m lucky if I can pick out the key nouns and verbs.

The results of last week’s test came back. I did better than expected, and a lot of people around me also did very well. Even those who are near failing have been told they still have hope. Class participation counts toward the grade, so anyone who has been showing up regularly and making an effort will get some credit. On any given night, there are only about twenty people in the class, so it is much easier now to be involved, to answer questions or read aloud. We have just a little more than a month left in this class.

We seem to be expected to learn so much more all at once now than during the first half of the course. So much vocabulary! So many irregular verbs! So many idiomatic expressions! It is a lot to remember. I have doubts about my ability to absorb all this in the time allotted. Simply memorizing vocabulary words and verb conjugations is not enough. As the material becomes more complex, the differences between Italian and English syntax become more evident, and more mysterious. What is the correct word order? Why use a preposition here, but not there? Il professore’s fluency in English seems like a miracle. If he can do it, I think, then I can do it. But how long did it take him? He started when he was much younger than I am now. Living in the country creates total immersion, the opportunity to really use the language everywhere, every day. Who will speak Italian with me?

I am spending extra time this weekend going over the most recent material in depth, along with a light review of previous chapters. The more I look at it, the more I am annoyed with the shortcomings of the textbook. There are too many odd little words and phrases introduced in the readings without adequate explanation. Vocabulary introduced in the text (and defined briefly in the margin) doesn’t always appear in the dictionary at the back of the book. The explanations and exercises tend to be weak; the very items most likely to be difficult to native speakers of English are glossed over briefly, while a lot of time is spent repeating things that are fairly easy. The authors imagine that we will spend time role-playing silly scenarios with other students. What planet do they live on?

We are getting more – and more difficult – homework. Last night il Professore said he will give us a “break” from grammar and concentrate on building more vocabulary. Aiee! I am not confident – not close to being confident – in the grammar. If I had a strong command of the grammar I could easily plug more vocabulary into it. But just learning more vocabulary seems pointless when I don’t know how to use it correctly.

Some of the failing or near-failing students seem to have made the decision to try harder. I could hear one small group discussing the class exercises we were doing, and they seemed to be doing quite well at the translation. Yet in class performance many are still very weak. Monty continues to be reprimanded for constantly “forgetting” his book. Obviously, he has never actually bothered to acquire a book.

My biggest weakness is understanding spoken Italian. Clearly, this is an important skill, probably the most important skill to have (unless I just want to sit at home and read Italian literature). While I am straining to decipher what il Professore says, others respond with apparently easy comprehension. I bought the CD set that goes with the book, even though it is not required. I plan to go back through the workbook and do the exercises that require listening. It is my hope this will help strengthen my comprehension skills.

The teacher and the textbook are not blameless. The book does not do a good job of providing examples or exercises. Difficult concepts are given only brief treatments instead of the thorough explanations most of us need. New words are introduced without being defined. Everybody is confused about something.

Tonight’s test contained material that had not been properly covered during class. In fact, after the test we worked on areas of the textbook that should have been covered before the test.

Even so, there are people who have a reasonable expectation of getting A’s or B’s. I believe that any of the people who are left — and probably many of the dropouts as well — could do well in this class. It does not require genius. But some people simply never do the homework. Many have trouble paying attention in class for more than 30 seconds, so that as we go through exercises in the book, they lose track of where we are somewhere between question 3 and question 5. Every night there is at least one person who has left the book somewhere else. Every night there are absentees.

There’s a scene I remember from a Clint Eastwood movie years ago. Clint, oddly enough, is a college professor. A seductive female student tells him she would do “anything” to get a good grade in the class. Anything? Heh-heh. He asks her what she’s doing tomorrow night. Nothing, she says, all smiles. Good, he tells her, then you can study.

That’s all it takes. The real division in this class is not old vs. young, multilingual vs. monolingual, male vs. female, happy vs. sad, working vs. unemployed. The only real difference is that some want to learn the material and some don’t. That seems to be about a 50-50 split.

I understand that some people are here only to fulfill a requirement and have little enthusiasm for the subject. I felt the same way about math. But I don’t understand those who seem not to care at all about their grade. Why not try, just a little bit, to raise a D to a C? And why accept an F at all? It would seem better to drop the class than to have one’s GPA dragged down.

Since starting the Italian class, I haven’t listened to any of my tapes or CDs. I really could use more practice with pronunciation. So today I have started reviewing part 1 of the Pimsleur course I went through last fall. This is (now) elementary stuff, but their approach is different and encourages thinking rather than just parroting, so it is good practice.

I don’t know how many are still officially enrolled in class. Attendance just keeps getting worse. I don’t think there were more than twenty present tonight.

Of course, the material continues to get more challenging. We are now conjugating all three kinds of regular verbs. We have the “little words”, the prepositions and partitives that continue to frustrate me. We have lots of vocabulary. When I think about it, it is impressive that we have done so much in such a short time. We are writing sentences — sometimes grammatically correct sentences — in Italian.

Yesterday I looked up the requirements to earn an AA degree in Italian at this school. (Am I nuts?) It doesn’t take much: seventeen units of Italian (that’s just three of these five-unit classes, plus a two-unit class in Conversational Italian) and some recommended electives. I’m not sure what I would “do” with a degree, but if I’m going to keep on studying the language, I may as well get plenty of credit for it.

I hope you will give me the benefit of the doubt. This is my first online journal. I know it is not exciting! But it does represent a point of view, and it has been fun for me to write it. You may leave a comment if you like. (They are moderated, so there may be a slight delay before they appear.) Please be gentle!

Last night’s class was intense. We are now working on prepositions. Il professore admits they are difficult. They seem to be difficult in every language. Often, the subtle misuse of prepositions is the only thing that identifies an otherwise excellent writer as a non-native speaker. Every time I think I understand Italian prepositions, it turns out I don’t. To begin, they are more complex than prepositions in English. That wouldn’t be terrible, since it’s possible to memorize just about any set of rules, even irregular rules. But beyond that, they are often used differently than in English, and I am having some trouble pinning down exactly when to use which preposition. For example, in English, we usually go “to” a place. It doesn’t matter much what the place is. I go “to” school, “to” Italy, “to” the store, “to” Denver, etc. But in Italian, I might go “a” (to/at) some places, and “in” (in) others. Io vado in Italia. Vado a New York. Vado in centro. Vado a scuola. This is made a little more complex because “a” has different forms. Al cinema, all’ufficio, a casa, allo zoo, etc. Yes, there are rules regarding “a” versus “in” in this context, but I haven’t been able to master them yet.