“Where’s my dinner?”

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Buondì.

Last week I wrote that I was due to attend my second daughter’s graduation, which I duly did. (Can’t live stream today’s action)

Picture the scene: we’re in a modest-sized lecture theater with red plush seats, capacity maybe a hundred. There’s a long table on a stage at the front, and behind it a screen. People are arriving, greeting each other, standing around chatting, as there are still ten minutes to go. Five smartly-dressed young people – three male, two female – are taking turns to fuss with a computer set up at a small table facing the stage.

The lecture theater is on the first (‘second’ for readers in the USA) floor of what looks like a fascist-era modernist building in the middle of a hospital complex. It does rather have the air of a movie theater, with a grand entrance hall, two wide curving staircases, and so on.

Relatives finally all seated (there was a limit of ten per student, so the auditorium isn’t full), the academics enter stage right: two older men, two younger men, one young woman. They’re chatting quietly amongst themselves. Everyone waits for the final minutes to pass before the appointed time.

After a brief welcome speech from the greyest and most self-important academic, it’s straight into the first Powerpoint presentation. Each candidate gets ten minutes to do their thing, after which the ‘relatore’ (thesis-supervisor, one of the people seated at the table on the stage) asks the candidate what is clearly a pre-prepared and expected question. The candidate briefly replies, there’s a round of applause, and on to the next candidate, the next powerpoint, and the next follow-up question.

My daughter’s on last and rattles through her presentation at double-quick time (people have been telling her for years to slow down). The follow up question, the applause, and she’s done!

The academics troop off the stage to confer in a back room, but don’t keep us waiting long. Once they’re seated again, the candidates are called in order, their final degree score is announced, hands are shaken, and via, on to the next one.

E così. Hannah (a mainstay of EasyItalianNews.com, at least until she starts earning the big bucks) got the maximum grade, which in Italy is 110 e lode.

Her friends, of which there seemed to be thousands, placed a triumphant laurel wreath on her head, and lots of photos were taken, for what seemed live forever.

It started to rain, but no matter: party poopers were set off, corks were popped from bottles of fizzy wine, and – at a certain point – the young people (and young-at-heart oldies) sang the traditional ditty:

“Dottore, dottore, / Dottore del buco del cul, / Vaffancul, vaffancul!”

All Italian graduates are entitled to the honorific ‘dottore’, not just future physicians or colorectal surgeons. If an Italian beggar calls you ‘dottore’, that’s why. You look like you have a college degree, or he’s just trying to flatter you.

Google Translate the lyrics to the song if you don’t already know them. Unless you’re a nice Christian lady who’s sensititve to cusswords, in which case don’t (none of the grandparents at the graduation ceremony seemed to mind, though.)

Why do young Italians serenade their friends with such crude words?

Beh, my reading is that, back in the day, university/college was such an ordeal, and the percentage of students who actually completed it so low, that anyone who actually managed to graduate needed taking down a peg or two…

“Graduate, graduate, you’re nothing special, go on with you now!”

That’s an utterly abysmal translation but might give you the general idea without the use of anatomical references.

N.b. To actually hear the song, and see how and where it’s usually performed, check out this super-short Youtube clip: https://youtu.be/srLt1Yxm11c?si=jFLraKKlsSnctDm5

E poi, from one proud-father moment to another! Our house guest, Bug, came out with his first recognizable sentence yesterday:

“Dov’è mia pappa?” (loosely: “Where’s my dinner?”)

It was imperfect (missing the definite article), but how I melted!

Not to say that Bug hadn’t already been speaking, in fact he barely ever shuts up. But small animals of his age tend to use words to ‘telegraph’ meaning (Google ‘telegraphic speech’), which adults can understand but which doesn’t much resemble how you or I would communicate the same idea.

A lot of what Bug says is single-word (my term, so no point in Googling it), in the sense of ‘gelato’ (I want/Can I have an icecream?) or ‘Bing’ (cartoon character, I want to / can I watch TV?)

Where multiple words are used, the sequence of the words tends not to matter, so “No parco” (I don’t want to go to the park) and “Parco no” are the same.

“No parco” is basically one concept, the opposite of ‘Parco!”, though with a variety of uses, mostly of the ‘want to/don’t want to’ type.

But now, how exciting! TWO concepts in one utterance, and delivered in the expected sequence: WHERE / DINNER?

Dove and Dov’è (where/where is) sound the same, at least to me, so it’s impossible to know if Bug was using the third person form of ‘essere’ correctly. I assume not. And to hell with the indefinite article ‘la’, who cares about that? Certainly not your average two-year-old.

But he’s on the right track! It’s another milestone on the road to what might be described as ‘normal’ speech. In a year or two most of what he says will be like that. I hang out in the park with plenty of four- and five-year-olds, so I know.

Così. But how is all this relevant to the ormai nearly THIRTY-THOUSAND OnlineItalianClub.com members?

Good question.

So, I know virtually none of you to speak to – maybe just a thousand or so names, and sometimes faces, of regular correspondents and/or customers.

But I bet – no really, I’ll put my money where my mouth is on this one – that every single one of you falls into one or more of the two example categories I’ve cited today.

Either you’re a college graduate, so at the cognitive level where you’re capable of putting together a basic Powerpoint presentatation and answering prepared questions from well-meaning college professors.

Or you’re at least two and a half years old, and more than capable of using words to telegraph your meanings and desires.

Any winning bets? Anyone who doesn’t fall into one of those two groups?

Thought not.

But what about when it comes to your foreign language? Italian, I assume, perhaps others, too.

Are you at the “Gelato!” “No parco!” stage, or not yet there yet?

In short, can you reliably telegraph your intended meaning in Italian, more or less, not bothering about grammar but getting the message across?

“Beer, no two. Cold. And nuts.”

Or glory be, might you have even reached the point at which you can put together and deliver a presentation in Italian (without A.I.)?

Yesterday I was listening to Swedish radio, and beating myself up about not understanding much.

I was tired, the topics were unfamiliar, it happens. But I still feel bad when it does.

I’ve been learning Swedish (never ‘studying’ it) for what, maybe eight years?

Bug is two and a half. Almost.

Hannah is twenty-five.

There’s a spectrum there.

Acquiring competences in a foreign language takes time. Lots and lots of time.

Unless the language you’re hoping to learn is very similar to another language you know well (as Italian is to Spanish, for instance), it’s probably a question of years, if not decades.

You’ve heard that kids learn foreign languages faster than adults, right?

It’s nonsense.

Bug’s been at it since he popped into the world yet is only just at the point of asking where his meal is, and nowhere near enquiring whether it’s vegan, likely to be too spicy for him, or contains any of the multiple ingredients he prefers not to put in his mouth.

Any adult could go from zero to Bug in a matter of weeks, in terms of spoken grammar and vocabulary. A month or two, max.

But beware! Measuring language competences by what you can SAY is a trap, and one that languge-learners fall into constantly.

While Bug cannot say a lot, and what he does say is barely grammatical, he UNDERSTANDS much of what’s going on around him, and what’s being said.

Every day he’s exposed to the speech of multiple adults, and the constant howling of the other animals at his petting zoo.

In the evenings he interacts with me, Stefi, and particularly Tom (our youngest, voice of EasyItalianNews.com). Plus he watches too much TV, mostly Italian but also English, and occasionally Swedish.

Ditto with Hannah. Frankly, I’ve heard better presentations, but hey, to get to where she is now she’s sat through nearly two decades (!) of ‘education’ and – in terms of scientific/medical content – is way, way beyond what I could hope to understand.

Hannah can read medical articles, or listen to lectures, and expect to have the educational basis and experience to make sense of it all, while I’d just be guessing.

In short, what you can say and write is likely to be much, much less than what you can read and hear.

That’s the natural and obvious way of things, of course. We’re exposed to language for enough time, we begin to be able to use it to communicate.

From baby steps to infinity, and beyond!

Except, except…

That’s not how some/many/most language learners behave.

Betcha at least half the people reading this think it’s more important that they ‘study’ grammar than that they instead spend the time reading or listening to the language they’re learning.

It’s probably eighty percent of you, possibly more. Grammar first, reading/listening after, nearly everyone thinks.

And then language students are suprised that they can’t understand what native-speakers say to them!

Must be because Italians slur their words. Why can’t they speak more clearly? Why do they have to talk so quickly!

Gotta go, but if you’d like to have your say on this article, there are instructions on how to do that (please don’t email) in the club’s FAQ. Scroll to where it says ‘How can I comment on an article?’

Alla prossima settimana!

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P.S.

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