Learning a language 2

Tomorrow I’ll have my last Italian lesson.  Altogether there will have been 15 of them.  Friday’s are usually my teacher’s busiest days, but she agreed to see me for an hour in the afternoon.  I feel a little like a therapy patient anxious to squeeze in one more meeting before the sessions end.

I’d asked for a review of something that Italian grammar books refer to as il periodo ipotetico, or hypothetical expressions; for example, “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.”  What in English seems seems straightforward and automatic, in Italian involves variations of the subjunctive and conditional.  I’ve had lessons on this topic in the past, but they hadn’t stuck and I’ve found myself avoiding anything that might end up being a hypothetical statement.  If I sense myself heading down a road that’s going to require what still seems like a complicated combination, I quickly take a detour.  Maybe after this review I’ll be prepared to go ahead and take the direct route.  I'll see how I feel on Saturday when I have dinner again with our friends here.

During these four weeks, meeting most days from 9 to 11, we’ve reviewed the several past tenses, prepositions, the imperative, the subjunctive, direct and indirect pronouns, conjunctions, and other grammar points as they came up.  I’ve written probably 10 or twelve little things meant to work at different kinds of writing -- letters, a short story, a newspaper article, even a recipe.  And we’ve spent a good deal of time just talking -- about Seattle where my teacher and her husband and daughter lived for several years; about travel; about the U.S. elections; about Italian teenagers’ fixation on certain brands like Eastpak backpacks and Franklin & Marshall sweatshirts; and, of course, about Italian politics.

So has my Italian improved?  Yes, I’m pretty sure it has, although it’s hard to tell how much.  I didn’t start out with any kind of benchmark test and I’m not taking one at the end that could provide a comparison.  I do know, though, that I still have quite a bit to learn.

Learning a language

A Google search on "language learning as an adult" seems to produce a lot of links to pieces urging adults to learn a new language.  "You can do it," they seem to say.  "Age and diminished blood flow to the brain are no excuses."

But I was looking for something different, maybe someone's thoughts on all that's involved: the initial reasons; the early struggle to memorize nouns and verb conjugations; the first, halting conversation where real, useful information gets exchanged; the first newspaper article struggled through; the first book completed; and all kinds of other firsts.  And then the continuing entry -- slow or fast -- into the language and with it, possibly, changes in outlook, even, who knows, personality changes.  It's something I'll read if and when I find it.

I think about this at the beginning of my second week in Bergamo, more or less the mid-point of the time I'll be here.  As I've probably already mentioned, I'm taking Italian lessons four days a week, usually in the morning from 9 to 11.  I have a very good teacher, who has been providing a variety of exercises aimed at reviewing certain points of grammar.  These two hours go by pretty quickly as we talk about whatever, review written exercises I've done, and correct the short pieces I've written. 

All of this is quite helpful and useful.  And I sense that I'm becoming a little more at ease in conversations, if only because of my teacher's tolerance and that of the family friends here who've been taking such good care of me.  But I can also appreciate just how much further I need to go before I'll be truly at ease.  And I'm only here for another two weeks.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of street photos from time wandering around the Città Alta and "shooting from the hip."  The main street, the via Gombito and its continuation on the via Colleoni, can be something like a medieval mini-mall when the Bergamaschi come strolling on weekends and holidays.  But it's also an area that I want to know better.  Anyway, here are the photos.