Buondì.
Yesterday evening it was sleeting where I live, in Bologna.
Roomie and I are hoping for snow, so we can replicate some of the scenes from the movie Frozen (she’s Anna, the frisky younger sister, I’m Elsa, the gorgeous blonde.)
But so far, no luck. The weather app on my smartphone accurately reported the situation yesterday as ‘pioggia e neve’.
Could be it was hedging its bets, could be it’s a case of glass half-full or half empty – phrasing it deliberately so as to please both motorists and those crossing their fingers for winter wonderland.
That got me wondering, though, whether perhaps Italian had no word for ‘sleet’? So I looked it up at WordReference.com, but of course it does. It’d just slipped my mind.
That source does rather suggest, however, that the meaning of ‘sleet’ (and thus its translation into Italian) varies from British to American English.
That’s logical, I suppose, as the USA has a continental climate, rather than the gusty, rainy weather that predominates in Britain, plonked down as it is between the more stable climate of continental Europe and the wild and windy Atlantic ocean.
Hence sleet can be either wet snowfall (as in my app), or ice pellets falling from the sky, depending on where you live.
This all reminded me of a horrible French lesson I once had with one of our online teachers, an attractive and friendly, but inexperienced, young woman from a north African country.
The lesson topic, that she’d selected without consulting me, was weather words. She’d prepared or borrowed from the Internet a .pdf listening hundreds of them, along with their parts of speech (verb, noun, adjective, etc.) and related weather idioms – none of which I now remember, sorry.
This was my second, maybe third French lesson after a forty-year pause since unfortunate experiences at high school, and I’d tried to make it clear that, being an Italian speaker, I could read French without too much trouble, and understand a lot of the radio. But needed to speak!
The problem was that no French words would come from my mouth. At all. I was totally blocked, so my hope was that a half hour of chat would have a defrosting effect, freeing up the mental pathways, and making accessible at least a part of what I did, actually know.
Experience strongly suggested that that’s what should happen. I’ve been teaching English to adults for decades, and had seen it happen many times, given the right approach.
Learning a thousand words to describe Bologna’s crappy climate might have worked, if the appoach had been coversational, the vocabulary just serving as a prompt.
But it wasn’t. The teacher felt the need to ‘teach’ each of the terms. In French, at least, which was good listening practice, though given that she seemed to think I was a beginner, how she expected me to understand her fast and detailed explanations, I have no idea.
At some later point, I reiterated that I could actually read and understand French, and that I totally got that she might think I was a beginner, as I was unable to speak at all, but that what I wanted, si vous plait, was a chance to chat, and be chatted to.
The response was that it was her job, as the teacher, to decide the lesson content and select the methodology. My preferences were irrelevant, and I should keep my opinions to myself, merci.
“Get rid of her”, I told our teaching manager, Lucia, the first and only time that I have fired an online teacher.
Lucia came back a few hours later with the contact info for another attractive, friendly, young French teacher, who turned out to be much less stupid, and with whom I did weekly conversations for the remaining months until she went off to get a proper job. And very useful it was, too!
That was towards the end of the second or third lockdown, I don’t recall, and I never got back to doing French lessons after that (though I still read and listen each day.) But if I ever do, I’ll be much more forceful about what I want – to speak, not a list of infrequent lexis I could easily look up in the dictionary.
Which brings me back to the weather where I live, and my app. Right now we have ‘pioggia e neve’ followed by ‘molto nuvoloso’, ‘coperto’, and ‘molto nuvoloso’ again.
Mid-afternoon, things start to pick up, and it’s just ‘nuvoloso’. Then the sun will take a peek through ‘nubi sparse’, but decide not to stick around. Meaning that it’ll be ‘nuvoloso’, ‘molto nuvoloso’ or ‘coperto’ for the rest of the day.
The maximum temperature, in case you’re interested, is 5 Celsius. Hope the outlook is less gloomy where you are!
People often tell me that they change the language settings on their smartphone, tablet or computer, so as to get more exposure to the language they’re learning. You could try that, if your weather app allows it.
Personally I always make a point of starting online lessons by asking about the weather. My Swedish conversation partner, for instance, lives in Gothenburg, on the west coast, up near the bottom of Norway. It rains a lot there, and is an awful lot windier than where I live (we almost never get wind in Bologna.)
“How was your weekend?”, is another good one. Along with “How are your (language the other person is studying) lessons going?”, and just catching up with news: “Are you still Covid +”?, “Have you made plans for the summer?” and so on. If you’re doing conversation with a more mature person, ask about their life experience. People, on the whole, can be very interesting, though less so if they’re just starting out…
I recall a particularly stupid club member, probably an older person, perhaps a professional or someone with a high-status job, who asked my advice on doing Italian conversation practice, specifying that she absolutely wouldn’t reveal anything personal about herself, and that she had not the slightest interest in hearing her teacher’s opinions or details of their life.
I wonder what on earth she thought she was learning Italian FOR?
Gotta go, so as to squeeze in my cardiologist-prescribed, minimum thirty-minutes of brisk walking, now the ‘pioggia e neve’ has eased off.
A lunedì.
P.S. Half-Price Ebooks Offer Ends Sunday Night
Here’s a reminder that this week’s two half-price eBook of the Week offers, over at our ebooks store, EasyReaders.org, end on Sunday night.
And also that this week there’s a 20% coupon code, should you wish to purchase any title in our classic movie series of ebooks. They work either as a simplified introduction to the movie, or just to liven up your Italian study program a little.
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P.P.S.
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Sharon Dias says
Hi Daniel
You are generalizing American weather. We live on Vancouver Island and in winter it rains non stop and we get quite excited if it snows. Especially if over Christmas. Washington state the same infernal rain.
That said Vancouver Island is considered the California of Canada and many retirees settle here. What they don’t get is that we hardly see the sun for weeks at a time. Whereas where it snows it is sunny and bright. So they complain about that. Should it dare snow all comes to a grinding halt, and once again everyone grumbles.
I am with Rooming on this one. Let it snow! Have lived on the equator and South Africa, so the very marked seasons delight me, yes even the constant rain. No gardening for months on end.
Thank you for your newsletters. I enjoy them, they make me smile and even laugh out loud at times
Sharon
Daniel says
Yes, of course, I’m generalizing. Sorry. Italian weather differs from place to place too, as does language, which was my point.
Roomie wasn’t with us last winter, so I’m not sure if she knows what snow is like to touch and walk around in. But she loves splashing in puddles, so I’m pretty sure it’ll be fun if it happens!
Thanks for commenting by the way, and for the positive feedback!
Lynne F says
Reading Bologna news, it looks like you have had snow. I hope Roomie enjoyed it (and you) 🙂
Daniel says
Sadly, while it was snowing heavily while we drove her to the petting zoo, it had all melted by the time we picked her up in the afternoon…
Lynne F says
What a shame, As an Early Years teacher for many years we made the best of snow when it arrived, for a short while abandoned the planned activities and went outside, All had wellies and suitable clothing and when we came in the daily carton of milk was turned into hot chocolate