Living in Italian

As languages go, Italian is not all that difficult.  I have in my life studied Latin, French and Russian and Italian doesn't even come close to the complications of those languages. No declensions as in Latin and Russian, no new alphabet, and not all that many irregular verbs like French, but damn, it's hard to learn a language when you're not a kid anymore.  For some reason, I cannot remember anything.  It's like my brain fell out on the sidewalk.

For this I blame my father.  There, I've said it.  My father, native Italian and native Italian speaker, who entered in the US at age 37 did not teach his children Italian.  I grew up hearing Italian, so the rhythms and the accent are easy, but what about the words and the sentences.  Why did he think we didn't need to learn the language???  I understand that being Italian was not comfortable in the years following World War II, but it would have been nice to share a little of this beautiful language with us.  It certainly would make my life easier in the here and now.

So, since I'm stuck with my inadequacies,  twice a week I go to an Italian language school to study Italian.  Ollie has private lessons with the school's owner, but my teacher is a charming and smart young Italian woman named Sara, who has two degrees in linguistics and a wonderful command of English.  Not that we're supposed to speak any English in class, but hell, how do you explain pronomi combinati or reflessivo without a couple of words of English.  I am joined in my class by women from Korea, Denmark and on occasion, Germany.  Several weeks into the program here, it occurred to me that every one of them speaks English as well as their native language.  How embarrassing!   How is it, with all of my education, the only language I speak is English.  OK, I speak Italian too, if you consider that faltering, one word at a time, conjugating as I go, no prepositions language, Italian.  I'm confident Italians don't consider it Italian.

Nevertheless, I still live in Italian.  I do my grocery shopping in Italian, pay my bills in Italian, talk to the doctor in Italian, and call the caldaia (heater) repair people in Italian.  And that's where the trouble begins.  I cannot talk on the phone in Italian!  Actually, that's not true, I can talk on the phone in Italian, I just can't understand what the guy on the other end of the phone is saying in Italian.

Since we got our new caldaia, every time the heat comes on, the thing leaks.  And I mean leaks a lot.  Over the course of a couple of hours, it puts out about 2 cups of water.  I'm pretty confident that's not a good thing.  So today, after weeks of putting if off, I called the caldaia people.  I started out quite confident that I could clearly explain what the problem was and that he'd immediately give me an appointment.  I was wrong.  Not about the clear explanation, that part was easy, but as soon as I finished explaining the problem, he started to talk...and talk.  I could feel my eyes glazing over and my brain lurching to a halt.  I had no idea what he's saying.  I still have no idea what he said.  Maybe when he comes to fix the caldaia he'll repeat what he said and then I'll know what he was saying, or not.  Ultimately, I have an appointment to finally get the caldaia fixed.  It's tomorrow morning at 8am...I think.

 

Via Venti Settembre, the main thoroughfare of Genoa

 

Looking up Via XX Settembre towards Piazza de Ferrari

 

Monumentale - Straddling Via XX Settembre, this bridge was built in 1895 and was one of the first cement structures to be built in Italy.  Above is Corso Andrea Podesta', but at street level, it is a monument to the partisans who died freeing Italy from fascism and nazism during WWII.

 

One of the beautiful porticoes along Via XX Settembre.  This was once part of the abbey of St. Columbanus of Bobbio.