do you want a cookie?

"... we’re gonna have to be bilingual; we’re gonna have to be, and English speakers hate this!
~ 'Two languages in one head? No one can live at that speed! Good Lord, man! You’re asking the impossible!'
~~ 'But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana.'
~ 'Yes, but they’re cheating!'"

- Eddie Izzard
excerpt from Dress to Kill

My reasons for choosing Italian when taking the required language courses (instead of taking Spanish, a language I have far more experience with) was to, of course, read Dante in his native tongue. The distant secondary reason was to not sound like an American buttmunch reading from a travel guide if I ever visited Italy. But it was mostly to understand the exact words Dante committed to La Commedia and see the depth so many translators have noted before me.

And I'm getting there. I can read Italian and look up verbs I don't know, use context clues for nouns I haven't covered yet. Even though I'm still translating in my head (instead of, as my professor this semester puts it, "thinking in Italian") it's starting to clear up and the simpler words have actual meanings instead of just English equivalents. My speaking, though, leaves a lot to be desired.

This may be because the only real continual education I've had (over the summer) was writing to my Italian teacher from last semester (a native Venetian) via email. And even though I'm still skeptical that what I'm writing actually makes sense (like how I said, facetiously, that if she ever needed help with English to let me know -- as if I didn't have enough trouble communicating sarcasm via the emotionless internet now I'm going to try in a language I've had a semester and three weeks of?) the time I spend on each letter decreases more and more (hopefully because I'm learning). The problem is I can't translate that writing to forming words.

My last two classes have shown a certain vulnerability I don't like in my linguistic skills: the inability to understand a person speaking at a normal speed and respond in a timely manner. Wednesday was class time devoted to Italian writers. It was like a class I'd studied my entire life for. I started rattling off names like Dante Alighieri, Guido Cavalcanti, Allesandro Manzoni ... like a 25 year-old teacher's pet. It was sickening. But then when he asked about Roman times in Italian, I couldn't understand a word he said. And even though he asked about the preminent writer from the Roman era, the man who wrote about the beginnings of Rome, the man who led my literary hero through the greatest poem ever created, I drew blank on what the heck he was saying. And then he wrote "Virgilio" on the board and suddenly everything he said made sense. I was a little embarrassed.

Today I was asked what I'm doing tonight. A simple question: "Che' cosa fai stasera?" My simple answer: "Stasera dormo." But then he asked: "Prima di dormi ..." and went off on various types of things I could be doing like eating, partying, etc. I wasn't paying attention. Instead I was using the delay to form "No, I woke up at 4 this morning to go to work." This normally would be "No, mi sono alzato a le quattro stamattina a andare a lavoro." Feeling the self-imposed pressure, I choked out something like "Mi alzo a la quattro." No. And I was corrected. It took me about five seconds to come up with the wrong answer.

You might be saying to yourself, "Nick, stop being so hard on yourself. You'll get it." But what if I don't? It took me like four or five years just to speak English. Well, to speak my own thoughts in English anyway. When I was little I exhibited echolalia. The story my mom always tells is when I would want a cookie, instead of saying, "Mom, can I have a cookie?" I would point to the counter (where the cookies were) and say, "Do you want a cookie?" in the same tone my mom would ask me. When I wasn't repeating I was (mostly) quiet. It took a speech therapist for me to finally speak correctly (and to listen better -- I still have to watch people's lips move in order to hear them 70% of the time). What if my stunted growth in Italian is due to childhood speech impediments?

Okay, maybe it's not that. I can only blame things on being part-autistic so many times before it becomes a crutch. But at least admit the possibility is still there.

I'm frustrated with how slow I'm learning. I can come up with the correct conjugations and the vocabulary, the nuts and bolts. I just can't seem to put it all together. It better come quick though. Or else Florence this summer will be very lonely.