RELUCTANT BLOGGER 4 Speaking the lingo

This part of Europe suits someone like me – someone with an enthusiasm for conversing in 'foreign' but without the confidence to really do so fluently. True, I can converse and make myself understood in German, Italian and (to a lesser extent although I probably understand it more) French. But, oh joy, in a bilingual town I can get away easily with saying the word in German when I can't remember it in Italian. Of course I could speak English as everyone here speaks that too with ease, but I discourage either myself or people I meet to resort to that out of principal.


At school I thought I was truly terrible at languages. I just didn't get them. In truth, I simply didn't understand my own language but because I always had an easy facility for words and creative writing, no-one noticed. It wasn't until I was in Milan working on Berio's opera Outis, and with a lot of spare time on my hands, that I made a concerted attempt at another language. Each day I would work on a lesson from a book, look up vocabulary for an imagined situation and then go out into the streets of the Italian Capital and attempt to contrive that situation. I often got no further than the reception desk of the apartments on the Corso d'Italia where the kind ladies must have rolled their eyes each time they saw me come out of the lift with my vocab cards, but who hid it well and answered my poorly pronounced questions patiently and with typical Italian grace.


Helpful too were the room maids. I (carefully) stuck labels and verb tables all over my room and would come back from a day's rehearsal to find my labels corrected. The same happened in Catania, Sicily when working there – the cleaning lady would put up additional labels when something had more than one name. Can you imagine a quintessential 'Blackpool' landlady doing that?

Early in my attempts to learn Italian I once summoned up the courage to telephone a hotel in Venice, explaining at length my request for a room with a double bed, a bath and breakfast for the following weekend only to listen crestfallen as the voice at the other end said 'we can speak in English if it's easier for you.' Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Hours of work down the drain.


However some slow progress was made, and I at least could buy a pizza and a drink......and another drink.......and another drink.......and by then it didn't matter what language was being spoken. But I conversed! And I realised I wasn't rubbish at languages, just that I had been taught in the most unimaginative way possible. I worked out for myself that listening to crass repetitive Italian pop music (which now hangs about in my mind and gives me great joy!), reading comics and very easy children's books, and watching the Italian version of 'Who wants to be a millionaire' (where the question is on the screen for a minute, giving me time to look up any words I don't know and jot them down) is the genuine way to learn another language. It's impossible without context, and a mobile classroom on a Friday afternoon with a 'monodrone' teacher is NO context. When you're hungry and need to know how to cook whatever it is, you translate the instructions and remember them. When you aren't, you don't


So here I am, in Bolzano, with a cast of two Italians (who speak fluent German and English), one Austrian (who speaks fluent Italian and English) and one Englishman (who speaks good German and Italian) ham-fistedly rehearsing with as much Italian as I can muster and mug up on in advance. I'm sure they long for me to just speak English, for the sake of everyone's ease, but I am determined. And I'm quite pleased with the results some of the time. When I have a few seconds to think about what I'm going to say, I do quite well. When I try to make it up on the spot, I do terribly and resort to English. But I did my whole long 'it's going very well, and here's what we must concentrate on next week' speech in Italian and was received my lots of nodding heads and smiles. In truth my Italian gets better by the day.


The only trouble is – after February 21^st when do I come back to take it to the next level? I'll be on to trying to improve my German by then meanwhile using my basic Czeck – capable only of saying 'hello' and buying a coffee.


This is where the rest of Europe has the lead over us. They are surrounded by each other's cultures and languages and move freely between them. In England, that little stretch of water and the dogged spirit to 'hang onto our Britishness' (whatever that is) stops us from gaining from all that Europe has to offer, however much we travel, as it is not part of our every day experience. And what have we achieved? A unique and strong British culture? I would say we have the weakest definable culture of our neighbours, and it has nothing to do with it being diluted by immigrants but a lot to do with our own stubbornness to experience and embrace the unknown, or be confident with what we have.


Anyway, I'll get down off my high horse, or scendero dal' il mio cavallo alto – except the Italians probably have another interesting way of putting it! I'm off to watch Amici – Italian tv show which is like a group version of X-factor crossed with Big Brother for singers and dancers. It's all the rage here and I can't get enough.