You are mine until ... what?

Not Sicily - Monopoli

I had made it to Sicily by train and the journey had already had all the hallmarks of 'one of those trips' that would be recounted and exaggerated with each telling. There was just one more ferry ride across the water to Malta and my final destination, but my boat was not leaving until after night had fallen and that was hours away. My unwieldy backpack was heavy plus it was relatively warm despite the winter season and I had not slept properly for days, so I sat on one of the chairs outside a wharf café hoping not to be noticed immediately and gazed out to sea.

I was not alone for long. He was up for a chat but we didn't really have a common language. The words of Italian that I knew were fewer than the bits of French that he was trying on me but the gestures, the intention of his regard and his intonation were clear. Humour was my first dissuasive tactic. That didn't work, but neither did long silences, a firmer tone or suggesting that my boyfriend could be along at any minute. Despite the daylight, I was becoming more and more uncomfortable, but grabbing my hand and declaring that "my blood is boiling for you" had me guffawing uncertainly, snatching my hand from his and standing abruptly.

From the comfort of my desk today, I was transported back in time and to this Italian port scene.
And, here is why...

Not once



but several times,



I had to translate this passionate statement from Italian to English, English to Italian and repeat it aloud over and over. I know that I don't yet know much in Italian and that finding creative, new sentences can be a challenge for an educator, but I did wonder if this were really a necessary addition to my beginner's repertoire?

Perhaps it is just a precursor to Valentine's Day?

I suspect not. Actually, it is quite liberating, quite exciting and in contrast to the conservative, polite nuances of my growing up in English.

PS I was struggling with grasping the word finché (translated as until) followed by the word non until I looked up the Italian-French translation which read 'aussi longtemps que'.... You are mine as long as I am not dead.

She shakes her head.

'But you are in France, Madame' available in Kindle and print here

I began three days ago

Monopoli in summer. Next time I am here, what will I be able to say?

I have been learning French for a long time and despite thinking that choosing maths as one of my Uni majors (maths and French) was wise given the dearth of maths teachers at the time that I graduated, it has always been the French that has got me the next job, onto the next adventure, living in the next place and meeting new people. I am competent in French, there is no doubt, but I continue to learn, and enjoy my language learning, every day.

My methods are tried and true - watching the French news (a whole lot easier now given that I can replay episodes on my computer, phone or television at any time), getting French email alerts (franceinfo) day and night, reading in French (a random choice of whatever I can lay my hands on from the libraries), communicating with my French friends (I never did think that Instagram and Facebook would work for me but they have proved me wrong) and being alert to any and all expressions, discussions and articles that would make my language more correct, more colloquial, more authentic. I also continue to speak French to my son, which keeps me on my toes but has become such a habit that I'm not sure we'll ever change our ways.

I have loved my role as a French teacher (no, I am not writing a cover letter although re-reading this it looks that way) and this too has continued to reinforce my own skills.

So, becoming a learner of a new language is exciting, but strangely disconcerting. I know how far I have to go, I know how much time and passion I will have to dedicate to my learning and, if I am honest, I am slightly trepidatious that it will impact my French (change my accent, interfere with my fluency) even though I know exactly what I would respond to someone voicing this fear to me.

In my last blog, I recounted the linguistic surprise that I received at the Italian Consulate, which resulted in me having to take a much quicker journey to speaking Italian than I was expecting.



I began three days ago...

by heading over to Duolingo. My teaching sensors were on high alert from the very beginning...why was I being taught this, what could the pattern be that I was being exposed to by repetition, would I learn which word needed il and which la without a list of masculine and feminine nouns by my side, would the lack of grammatical explanations hinder or help my progress...? It is so very different from the classroom text books which mostly start with simple greetings and progress so very slowly. In the first five minutes of Duolingo I was writing, repeating and putting together sentences.

I then headed to Babbel. Just the faffing around with setting up the microphone was a hint that it was not going to be the right fit for me, but confirmed when I was made to repeat Grazie, Ciao and Buona notte over and again in the same time that I had put together Io mangio il pane (I am eating the bread) on Duolingo. But, this is not to knock Babbel. I suspect that the rapid introduction of new words and grammatical ideas (without them being explained explicitly) over on Duolingo would be off-putting to many complete beginners.

Some of what I have completed so far: 

conjugation of parts of a few verbs (eat, cut, drink, be...but I don't yet know the infinitives), introduction to a couple of prepositions (nel, ai), making a sentence negative with a single word 'non' (in French you need two words), not noticing initially that 'no' and 'non' were different and used differently ('no' when you mean 'No' and 'non' to make a sentence negative), the use of gli (not i) to make an article plural when you have a noun beginning with a vowel (eg gli uccelli), the pronunciation of the 'c' in forchetta (not ch), discovering that some words are great fun to say (cuochi, bicchieri, burro, aglio), finding that my ear is not tuned into the difference between il and un when said quickly in the middle of a sentence and using il (French) for he (instead of lui) and wanting to pronounce un as I would in French...

Fingers crossed I can keep it up... what if this were just the universe's way of letting me know that my next adventure will be more verde, biancho e rosso  than bleu, blanc, rouge?

PS I love the photo of my son and I, which seemed to fit today's blog ... in Italy and reaching up, up, up.