What's harder? Trying to make a joke or buying food.

I have a new respect for how my grandparents and other immigrants learned to speak English.  It is one thing to learn a language in your native country with a professor who also speaks your native language.  It is a completely different situation to try and learn a language in a foreign country, with a group a people who come from even more different countries, and there is none of your native language spoken during class or while walking around the city.  (Ok, so that last part is a lie, because a lot of people here do speak English, but they are more willing to help you when you speak Italian).

In the class, there is one girl from Spain, two girls from Brazil (one does speak English though, she went to school in Philadelphia), a boy from India, a lady from France, a guy from the Ukraine, and then me and Laura.  There were a few more on the first day but they got moved to the advance level. I have never felt more stupid than I did on that first day of class.  It seemed like everyone else was following along perfectly, and I was sitting there trying to copy off Laura just to see what it was we were supposed to do.  It was rough.  I don’t remember a lot from the movie Lost in Translation, but I’m pretty sure I can now relate to Bill Murray.

After class we met Karan, one of the students who got moved to the advanced level.  He has become a savior to Laura and I.  He has been studying Italian for 5 years and it fluent, and he is from England so it is amazing for us when we want to know how to translate things.  Tomorrow he leaves, and Laura and I will have to fend for ourselves again.

However, it has been a week now (I am writing this on Friday) and I feel a lot better about speaking.  The one thing I will say about this class though, is that while we see some new vocab when we do worksheets, I don’t feel like I am incorporating it into my knowledge base.  We are reviewing a lot of grammar but without words to use, what is the point?  The best way to improve is to get out and use it, right?  So that’s what we are doing.

Monday night, Karan, Laura, and I were going to see The Great Gatsby in Italian, but then Laura didn’t think she would make it to the vaparetto (water bus) in time, so we went to grab a drink instead.  We ended up meeting a couple locals and spending some time talking to them.  The woman had studied in New York for her Master’s, so while she did mostly speak to us in Italian, she was also able to speak in English when we would get stuck.

Wednesday morning Laura and I tried to get me hooked up with WiFi for the apartment, and get Laura a phone.  Neither one of them came about as we thought they would.  The guy in the store did not know what I was talking about when I relayed the message Rita told me in order to get myself set up and the phone guy needed Laura’s passport in order to set her up which she did not have.  We did however get to a cafe with WiFi and that was when I uploaded my last post.

Yesterday morning I FINALLY made it to the grocery store!!  This was so exciting for me…until I got there.  Buying dry food and food off the shelves is the same anywhere, but the problems I had where more so like “Where did everyone get the carts and baskets?” “How do I buy fresh mozzarella/seafood/chicken from the counter?” “What is the difference in these milk containers? Do they have 2%, skim, and whole?  This one has a baby on it and this one has a woman on it, but the words are all the same…what does that mean?”  These are all thoughts I had but could not even begin to communicate.  I found the carts on my own, I chose a milk that didn’t have any picture on it and it tastes fine, just slightly different than 2%, and I forfeited the idea of getting fresh food from the counter.  I will leave that adventure for another day.

((I have started to make a list of small goals for my Italian.  They are things like “Becoming fluent enough to be funny.” It is sooo frustrating to me to have a funny thought and not be able to say it because I either don’t know the words or know it won’t translate the same.  Another new goal is “Learn how to obtain all things in a grocery store that I am looking for.”))

Last night, most of us from class were going to go out together, but it was raining and one of the girls lost her bus ticket, so a few people bailed.  It ended up just being Karan, Laura, Sanchit (India), Slava (Ukraine), and I who got together.  I had a great time!  It was one of the bigger tests of Italian that I have felt in all of my studying. Sanchit speaks English really well, and Slava knows more English than he thinks, but it was still easier to speak Italian and harder to communicate, if that makes sense.  Italian was easier because it is our common base, but harder because I always want to default into English.  Between the five of us though, we made it work.  As we parted ways for the evening, Slava and I headed towards Piazza Roma so he could catch his bus and I the vaparetto towards where I live.  This is where I am really proud of myself (and Slava), because without help we were able to discuss how we were both trying to study in Florence, what we wanted to do, and the problems that we faced in getting to do so.  At the bar, we had also been able to discuss what we had previously studied and where we worked.

Today, I was supposed to try and meet up with Laura and Karan again, but I don’t know if my texts are going through. They haven’t responded in a way that makes me think they are receiving what I am saying.  So instead, I am typing this up.  Now I must leave to go to class, and see what is going on with mine and Laura’s phones.

Saturday morning addition:
Laura and I figured out how to make our phones work!!  Success!  I ended up not being able to meet up with Karan and Laura yesterday because our phones refused to contact each other.  After class, the same five of us went out again and I really feel like A. I have made some great new friends and B. that I am really starting to think in Italian. You can add to my list of little goals: “To have a dream in Italian.” “To think in Italian without having to do the full translation part of it”

Over the past week some things have happened to me that I find super exciting, but I am sure no one else would be as amused.  The first is that I get sooooo excited when other tourists think I am a locale.  I have finally figured out some of the roads and the vaparetto system, or at the very least, the main ways to get places.  One night this week, I got stopped by a family from Malaysia because they were lost and trying to find the train station.  I was able to lead them to where they needed to go (not too hard since I was headed in the same direction) and we got to talking.  They spoke some English and kept asking me questions like “Oh, you are a student?  We thought you lived here!  How long are you here for?” “What are you studying?” “Why did you want to study Italian?”  It was weird because I heard myself start speaking English as if it wasn’t my native language.  I was speaking broken English as if I was Italian trying to speak English.  Also, I kept responding in Italian when they would ask me a question.  It was both exciting and weird.  Exciting that for once I was defaulting to Italian, but weird because they didn’t speak Italian and actually wanted me to speak English.

I have also helped a few people figure out which vaparetto stop they needed, how to avoid the street merchants that will literally stalk you if you make eye contact or show any interest in what they are selling, and how when ordering food there is a difference in price when you order at the counter than when you sit down.

That is all for now, as I need to use my computer to look up train tickets for weekend trips and other exciting things before my battery dies.  Also, I PROMISE to post pictures soon.  I just haven't taken that many yet. Ciao!