Everything's going so well!

Parlo italiano.

Mangiamo pizza.

Canti bella.

Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei.

i bambini = los niños

Learning Italian is proving to be about what I expected, really. It's at times ridiculously similar and at other times unrecognizable when compared to Spanish. Though Spanish is coming in handy because the meanings translate so much better, for example i bambini vs. los niños is a much closer translation than to English, where it could mean "babies" or "kids" or "children."

(The tough part is not using Spanish! I caught myself thinking I was really catching on well to Italian, when really I had just slipped back into Spanish. ¡Maldito sea! Er, I mean... maledizione!)

Unfortunately, I've also come to realize that Italian is really not going to be useful unless/until I go to Italy. Browsing around on a job posting today (just for funsies!) there was a posting for a multilingual something-or-other in Europe of all places (again, just for funsies! (... for now)), and Italian was not listed as a language for which they were hiring. And that's on their home continent!

So, I'm pondering other languages to maybe tack on... something that is maybe useful outside of its country of origin.

However, so long as I have a meaningful conversation with my cousin-from-Italy this summer, I think I'll be able to cross this one off! It really is a very pretty language.

Ciao!

Inspiration, Motivation - GO!

Today I am going to buy a book - a text book - to learn Italian.

I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love (late to the party, I know!) and the first third of the book is devoted to her being in Italy. I'm a person who is interested in whatever language is around me that I don't know, so as she's talking about una buona forchetta and parla come magni and attraversiamo I can't help but get so excited that I read the passages written in Italian two or three times before going to the English translation. I want to figure it out and know all of its inner workings.

Also, in my feeble attempts to find websites that will conjugate Italian verbs for me, I realize that even if I learn verbs, I don't have any nouns to use with them. I won't get so far just saying "I like" or "We eat" or "You think" without saying what we like, eat or think.

So I'm going on the hunt for a real text book that will  teach me some of the basics.

After all, I'm not trying to have a deep, philosophical conversation about the meaning of life. I'm trying to communicate! And if philosophy comes in to play I'll just switch back to Spanish. And then probably back to English, because Philosophy is hard. (One of three classes in my life where I earned a 'C'. The others were Political Science in college because I hate politics and English in third grade because I didn't fill out my day planner. I still don't fill out my day planner or talk much about politics. Or philosophy.)

Ready? Let's go! ¡Vamonos! Andiamo!