Unlike the French, Italians are patient with my clumsy attempts to speak the language. I am so grateful. I’ve been to Paris with my high school French, and they glare at you just for having the temerity to speak it. There was this whole thing once with a perfume lady on the Champs Élysée that ended when I stormed out of the shop and extended my stiff middle finger at her.
Glad to know that I am not the only one here who has issues learning this language. I completely relate to the number of syllables comment. My go to line is usually " Spiacente, ma non parlo Italiano bene. Piano piano per me! Which I just put into Google Translate and got back... "Mi dispiace, ma non parlo bene l'italiano. Piano piano per me! Learn something new every day. :D
Maddening, isn't it? And then there are the English words you "Italianate," such as "He just registered a song" (registrare = record) or "Did you prenotate?" (prenotare = reserve, as a table), until your brain resembles the Picasso painting called Guernica.
I've always had the devil's own time learning other languages. When I arrived in Germany with the army, I was going to take care of everyone b/c I'd had 2 yrs of German in High School. We needed the train to Bitburg, so I waltzed up to some conductors who were hanging out opened my mouth ... and couldn't remember an effin' word. Instead I pointed at the train and said "Bitburg?"
Working on my Ph.D., they no longer require a foreign language per se, but a "research tool." As my diss was on philosophical issues relating to general relativity I was able to substitute a study of differential geometry for a language. (I speak gravity.)
Now, apparently, even Classics majors aren't required to learn Greek or Latin! That's just crazy, at least to me. I'm afraid our collective failure to learn a second language has everything to do with the way we're taught languages in high school--one hour classes, several times a week won't cut it. In Northern Europe, half of all classes are in English!
Well, in my case it made a good measure of sense, since the philosopher I was focusing on, as well as all the secondary lit, were all in English. But it did require a facility with the mathematics of general relativity (differential geometry) which no one in the Whitehead scholarship had bothered to master along with the full range of his texts.
It's funny that you mention Classics people. One of my criticisms of the Whitehead community and their refusal to get an acquaintance with even abstract algebra is that it is akin to someone proclaiming themselves a Plato and Aristotle scholar, but never troubling to learn any of that Greek language stuff.
So, a dear friend of mine who was a Classics major felt that perhaps the undergrads could be spared the onerousness of learning Greek and Latin. "Leave that to the post-docs," she said. What are your thoughts there?
Did she say "post-docs" or "post-grads"? I thinking, hoping, it was the latter. Because a post-doc is someone with an earned Ph.D. who is supposed to be capable of research quality publication. That person damned sure better already have a solid grasp of Latin & Greek!
It has been a while since I looked (I got my BA in 1983) and we were required to fulfill a basic language req as part of our studies. I would be strongly inclined to insist that any student with an eye to graduate studies get a start on either Latin or Greek. If they are certain that their BA will be terminal, then sure, why not French or Spanish? (A humanities BA is actually pretty well respected in the business world.)
By the bye, I would argue that people completing their Ph.D. should be required to obtain some form of professional certificate -- an MCSE, a CPA, etc. -- so that they can market themselves beyond academia to non-profits (who LOVE folks w/ graduate degrees), NGO's, and other outfits that will respect their education and give them a place to apply their idealism.
When I lived in Zagreb, I found I could negotiate the markets with a combination of English and my schoolboy German. It was an ever-evolving adventure, but I didn't starve, so there's that. In Kosovo, I always had an Albanian interpreter with me, so I was relatively well-protected from any self-created embarrassing moments. I learned enough to be able to say "thank you" in rather flowery language. It made people happy to hear me (poorly) attempt to speak their language, though for all I knew I could've been saying "Your mother is a hamster, and your father buggers your neighbor's livestock." No one tried to disembowel me, so I must have done something right.
My cappello off to you. I have spent a lifetime and one billion dollars collecting foreign language apps, tapes, software, and *33 rpm records* trying to master any other language. I once famously (in certain circles) quoted my own tombstone as saying, "She spoke only English, but she spoke it to death".
Does anyone want to buy my Central American Spanish and Esperanto materials?
Glad to know that I am not the only one here who has issues learning this language. I completely relate to the number of syllables comment. My go to line is usually " Spiacente, ma non parlo Italiano bene. Piano piano per me! Which I just put into Google Translate and got back... "Mi dispiace, ma non parlo bene l'italiano. Piano piano per me! Learn something new every day. :D
Maddening, isn't it? And then there are the English words you "Italianate," such as "He just registered a song" (registrare = record) or "Did you prenotate?" (prenotare = reserve, as a table), until your brain resembles the Picasso painting called Guernica.
I've always had the devil's own time learning other languages. When I arrived in Germany with the army, I was going to take care of everyone b/c I'd had 2 yrs of German in High School. We needed the train to Bitburg, so I waltzed up to some conductors who were hanging out opened my mouth ... and couldn't remember an effin' word. Instead I pointed at the train and said "Bitburg?"
Working on my Ph.D., they no longer require a foreign language per se, but a "research tool." As my diss was on philosophical issues relating to general relativity I was able to substitute a study of differential geometry for a language. (I speak gravity.)
Now, apparently, even Classics majors aren't required to learn Greek or Latin! That's just crazy, at least to me. I'm afraid our collective failure to learn a second language has everything to do with the way we're taught languages in high school--one hour classes, several times a week won't cut it. In Northern Europe, half of all classes are in English!
Well, in my case it made a good measure of sense, since the philosopher I was focusing on, as well as all the secondary lit, were all in English. But it did require a facility with the mathematics of general relativity (differential geometry) which no one in the Whitehead scholarship had bothered to master along with the full range of his texts.
It's funny that you mention Classics people. One of my criticisms of the Whitehead community and their refusal to get an acquaintance with even abstract algebra is that it is akin to someone proclaiming themselves a Plato and Aristotle scholar, but never troubling to learn any of that Greek language stuff.
So, a dear friend of mine who was a Classics major felt that perhaps the undergrads could be spared the onerousness of learning Greek and Latin. "Leave that to the post-docs," she said. What are your thoughts there?
Did she say "post-docs" or "post-grads"? I thinking, hoping, it was the latter. Because a post-doc is someone with an earned Ph.D. who is supposed to be capable of research quality publication. That person damned sure better already have a solid grasp of Latin & Greek!
It has been a while since I looked (I got my BA in 1983) and we were required to fulfill a basic language req as part of our studies. I would be strongly inclined to insist that any student with an eye to graduate studies get a start on either Latin or Greek. If they are certain that their BA will be terminal, then sure, why not French or Spanish? (A humanities BA is actually pretty well respected in the business world.)
By the bye, I would argue that people completing their Ph.D. should be required to obtain some form of professional certificate -- an MCSE, a CPA, etc. -- so that they can market themselves beyond academia to non-profits (who LOVE folks w/ graduate degrees), NGO's, and other outfits that will respect their education and give them a place to apply their idealism.
When I lived in Zagreb, I found I could negotiate the markets with a combination of English and my schoolboy German. It was an ever-evolving adventure, but I didn't starve, so there's that. In Kosovo, I always had an Albanian interpreter with me, so I was relatively well-protected from any self-created embarrassing moments. I learned enough to be able to say "thank you" in rather flowery language. It made people happy to hear me (poorly) attempt to speak their language, though for all I knew I could've been saying "Your mother is a hamster, and your father buggers your neighbor's livestock." No one tried to disembowel me, so I must have done something right.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Think of the million ways that could have gone wrong! Still, as you said, you didn't starve. And that's no small thing.
“How much for your daughter??”🤣
My cappello off to you. I have spent a lifetime and one billion dollars collecting foreign language apps, tapes, software, and *33 rpm records* trying to master any other language. I once famously (in certain circles) quoted my own tombstone as saying, "She spoke only English, but she spoke it to death".
Does anyone want to buy my Central American Spanish and Esperanto materials?
LOL! Hope springs eternal, right? I wonder what they'll put on my tombstone. "Good riddance?"