Was It Something I Said?

I walked across campus with il professore, thinking this would be a good chance to have a conversation in Italian. Ha! Apparently I can’t walk and speak Italian at the same time, even with someone who is willing to coach me. And, once again, I wonder why this school offers the all-important (and required for a degree) conversational Italian class so rarely. Nearly everyone here wants to take that class, and has wanted to do so as long as I’ve been in this program. Although we do some verbal presentations in the current class, we are not learning to think on our feet.

Pimsleur is not just the usual listen-and-repeat material. These people actually try to make you think in Italian. It’s exhausting! This is an expensive course, but it is very thorough and takes a very different approach from all the others. I have found it worthwhile.

The Decameron. Not for anyone likely to be offended by full frontal nudity or toilet humor, this uneven, disjointed film follows nine stories based on Boccaccio’s Decameron. I have read some reviews that indicate parts of the original film were removed for the sake of length, which may be part of the reason it seems so disconnected.