montagna e conversazione

(translation: mountain and conversation)

yesterday afternoon noelia came over to see me. we ate lunch together (a wonderful pasta with fresh ricotta cheese that philippe made!) and then went for a walk.

she asked me on sunday if i wanted to go with her, and i said yes. but i was very hesitant because it is so difficult to communicate with her. you see, noelia is from argentina, which means her native language is spanish. but argentinian spanish, which is a bit different than the mexican spanish we learn in american schools. on top of that, she has been in italy for five years and has learned some italian as well. enough to get by, at least. but because spanish and italian are so similar she speak a sort of... spatalian? or italianish? like spanglish without lish. kind of. so when she speaks italian, she says a lot of spanish words, but also when she speaks spanish she uses a lot of italian words. it's confusing and very hard for me to understand.

anyway, the base is most of the way up a small mountain, so noelia and i walked to the top of it. incredibly enough, noelia slowed down her speech considerably and used almost exclusively spanish words! i could now understand most of what she said :) we sat at the top of the mountain overlooking the city of pescara and talked about everything from family to school to jobs to why we came to italy. a good conversation. challenging, for sure, but we made ourselves understood, i think.

it was good for me to speak spanish with someone who doesn't know english, because it forced us to listen very very carefully and to speak more carefully. it took effort. a LOT of effort.

on a similar note, today was the first english conversation lesson with both giuseppe (from the restaurant) and barbara. i was soo nervous because i really don't know italian and can't explain things very well in a way that they understand in english. but, amazingly, it went soo well!!

barbara understands english a bit better than giuseppe so she can help him a little more. but afterwards they both said that they thought it was good that i don't speak italian! because it takes more of an effort for them to understand me. if i knew italian it would kind of be like cheating, they said, because then they wouldn't have to think as hard or listen as much. and really, if they are trying to speak english in conversation with someone who doesn't know any italian, it would be the same way! they wouldn't have a translator right there to help them. and it's so true!

i understand because it is the same way with me and noelia when we talk.. we have to make an effort to understand. we have to explain things several times. we have to be intentional about it.

you just have to dive in and learn as you go.
a lesson for language but also for life :)

i also forgot to mention that they asked for more frequent conversation lessons! so they will come every tuesday and thursday now. i'm excited!