Learning Italian: The Back To Front Language! Posted by Geoff on Jun 29, 2015 in Italian Language
My mother tongue being English, I can really empathise with the problems encountered by learners of la bella lingua. Let’s face it dear readers, Italian sounds divine … but it’s all back to front, upside down, and inside out, vero? Of course, if you already speak another Latin language your learning experience will probably be rather more straightforward, but even then Italian has many grammatical idiosyncrasies ready to trip you up, such as the rather vague differentiation between stare (to be) and essere (to be), which are so much easier in Spanish or Portuguese.
In the early stages of learning Italian this back-to-frontness is a big problem: we want clarity, we want literal equivalents, we torture ourselves by asking why? why? why? What’s the point of saying la mia bici (the my bike), isn’t it sufficient simply to say ‘my bike’? Why do Italians say questa notte (this night) when what they mean is last night? And what about che culo! (what bum!) when they really mean ‘that was lucky!’
“Why don’t you overtake, it’s only a bike?”
Well, here’s a tip: don’t get too hung up on literal comparisons or translations. Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that this is the way things are. No one is going to change the Italian language to make it easier for you!
Now, if you’re not living in Italy then you’ve really got your work cut out for you! Just think for a moment about the way in which children learn their mother tongue: they are surrounded by it, hence they acquire it, they absorb it, they imitate and practice it in meaningful contexts. How on earth are you, dear readers, going to achieve that at home or in a class far from the shores of il Bel Paese?
To be honest, I don’t envy you, in fact I admire you for trying! The bits and pieces of Italian that I learnt in England certainly helped, but really, I didn’t begin learning until I came to live here.
And there’s an interesting thing: after a few years of living in Italy, those expressions that used to seem so wrong eventually become normal to the point that you even begin to question the logic of the English language! Take, for example, questa notte (last night). This expression used to sound so silly to me when I heard Serena using it; “wait … do you mean this night, tonight … but how can questa notte be last night when it translates as this night?” etc. etc.
Last night a thief came into my house looking for money … … I got up and we began looking for it together.
Well, guess what, these days, when I’m talking in English, I often find myself saying ‘this night’, when what I mean is ‘last night’. Can you see what’s happened there? Questa notte has become the norm for me, my brain has accepted it to the point where it can sometimes seem more normal than saying ‘last night’. What I’m getting at is: it’s all a matter of perspective, and by continually questioning the logic of Italian constructions we can easily impede ourselves from making progress.
The Italian child, when learning its mother tongue, doesn’t say to itself, “la mia bici … che strano, perché si usa l’articolo?” The child accepts, absorbs and assimilates what it hears: la mia bici, il mio libro, il nostro gatto, la nostra macchina etc.
So, remember that child whilst you’re learning. Sure, study the grammar and so on, but most of all learn to listen and observe just as you did when you were a child. After all, you don’t need to study musical theory in order to hum a simple tune that you’ve heard a few times on the radio, do you?
In bocca al lupo.
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Comments:
Ina:
Grazie per il consiglio. Studio l’italiano da tanti anni e visto che sono adesso una pensionata, e troppo tardi per me, purtroppo, vivere li. Pero, studiarla e’ una bella sfida e non mi arrendo mai. Parlero’ la bella lingua prima di morire senz’ altro!! Apprezzo il tuo blog.
Geoff:
@Ina Grazie per il tuo gentile commento Ina, e tanti complimenti, scrivi benissimo in italiano!
A presto, Geoff
LuLu @ Calabrisella Mia:
Great post! A lot of what I’ve learned while living in Italy is from just listening and not over thinking. Like you said, just accept it for what it is! 🙂
Geoff:
@LuLu @ Calabrisella Mia hai capito! 🙂
P.S. Mi piace il tuo blog, complimenti.
Joan Engelhaupt:
E uguale “questa notte” e “stanotte”? E che vuole dire “stamattina”? Se non vuole dire “this morning”, come lo direi?
Geoff:
@Joan Engelhaupt Ciao Joan, good observation. Stanotte and stamattina are simply colloquial abbreviations of questa notte and questa mattina. In Toscana, we also use stamani (questa mattina).
Jo:
We’ve lived in Italy for nearly eight years and I think my Italian was better when I was a tourist! One of the troubles we have in Le Marche is the dialect and surrounded by elderly Italians who all speak old style Italian at a speed of knots! But we find they are very patient. I thought by now I would be fluent but it is so difficult even when immersed.
Geoff:
@Jo Certo, il dialetto non aiuta. Dove siamo noi avevo il medesimo problema, ma devi capire che anche la Serena a volte fa fatica a capire gli anziani quando chiacchierano fra di loro in dialetto, e Serena è Italiana!
Are you part of an expat community, where you speak English between you frequently? I know an English who’ve lived here for around 10 years and are absolutely hopeless in Italian, but nearly all their friends are other expats, so they don’t really need to learn.
I’ve never been part of that kind of community, so I’ve had to learn the hard way! Obviously, my wife and in-laws are all Italian, so that makes a big difference. And a lot of my friends aren’t particularly educated, so I speak a very colloquial Italian.
Having said that, Serena and I speak ‘mostly’ English at home because when we met (21 years ago) I didn’t speak Italian.
Next time you write, how about writing in Italian so that we can help you out bit, cosa ne pensi?
Saluti d Geoff
Federica:
I am afraid that sometimes, when learning new language you have to remember “Sometimes it just is”. This not only applies to learning Italian, but also to the English language
Geoff:
@Federica Esatto!
paolo:
Bravo. Penso che osservazioni come queste siano molto utili. Dopo quattro anni e mezzo, io fatico continuamente a capire il linguaggio italiano. Il scrivere, il sentire, il parlare sono tutti processi diversi.
Quanto più io imparo, tanto più mi sento americano e meno italiano, purtroppo.
Mi domando se sia possibile a parlare fluentemente senza abitare in Italia.
E poi c’è la questione di avere fiducia in sé quando parlare con gli italiani nativi. Forse un argomento per un blog.
Geoff:
@paolo Per quanto riguarda la domanda se è possibile parlare l’italiano correntemente senza abitare in Italia, a dire la verità … non credo proprio!
Comunque, se scrivi già bene così dopo solo quattro anni e mezzo …. complimenti!
P.S. è anche corretto dire: parlare una lingua ‘correntemente’, invece di ‘fluentemente’, ma si può usare tutti e due 🙂
Pamela:
Ciao Geoff!
Questa è la prima volta che io leggo il tuo blog e mi ha piaciuto molto! Qui scriverò in italiano perche non l’ho fatto in molto tempo, spero che tutto sìa bene 😛
E vero che imparare qualche lingua straniera non è facile, specialmente quando non viviamo nel paese. Ma credo che si può imparare almeno un po’ meglio se abbiamo una educazione “interdisciplinaria”. Per essempio, io ho studiato l’italiano per alcuni anni, prima da sola a mia casa, ma dopo ho stato andata all’università ed ho studiato con una professoressa molto brava che ha vissuto in Italia, lei mi ha insegnato fatti sulla cultura italiana, e le mie lezioni furono abbastanza meglio, perche ho potevo capire che, come in qualsiasi lingua, ci sono espressioni puramente regionali, e la sua traduzione non è possibile letteralmente.
Per me è ‘facile’ perche nel mio paese, Messico, ci sono moltissime frase che se non conosci la nostra cultura sarai così confuso come con l’italiano.
Ma anche hai ragione, il mio sogno è potere andare a Italia ed imparare con la sua gente, per non solo parlarlo, ma vivirlo.
Saluti! 🙂
Geoff:
@Pamela Ciao Pamela, e grazie per il tuo commento … scrivi bene in Italiano! Ti aiuterebbe se ti indicavo qualche sbaglio? Fammelo sapere, okay?
A presto, Geoff 🙂
Pamela:
Beh, se sono sbagliata, si! Per favore ^^
Non sono andata più a scuola ma provo di non dimenticare!
Grazie, Geoff ^^
Serena:
@Pamela Okay, quando avrò due minuti ti mando una mail.
Ci sentiamo presto, Geoff
Carolina:
Grazie tante! Ieri sera, could that be the same as questa notte? I am so grateful for this blog, thanks so much. I do not have the chance to practice Italian here (I live in a small town outside of Asheville NC) only time is when I go to Italy and as you say, we just go with it instead of questioning the why. Excellent blog and great great comments!
Grazie tante!
Serena:
@Carolina Non c’è di che!
Ieri sera = yesterday evening.
Grazie per il tuo gentile commento, a presto, Geoff 🙂
Caterina:
As a native English speaker, learning Italian on my own, with my native Italian speaking husband to help me, I have come to appreciate how difficult it would be to learn English as a second language. Topics that I would like explained are as follows: 1) When children are learning Italian at home, I assume mother use “Tu”, but how/when is the formal “Lei” distinguished as they begin to interact with strangers. 2) If you meet a cousin for the first time, do you start with Lei and ask for permission to use Tu or directly to Tu, since you are related? 3) Do the 85 meanings of “piano” cause as much confusion and it appears to those of us that use a dictionary for guidance?
Franco Perin:
Ok Geoff. Solo un piccolissimo appunto: non si dice la Serena. Si dice in dialetto, soprattutto al nord. L’articolo va evitato. Ciao
Geoff:
@Franco Perin Salve Franco, magari non ti fidi perché sono inglese … quindi, ti passo la Serena che risponde lei, okay?
P.S. solo un piccolissimo appunto: non si dice ‘ciao’ agli sconosciuti 🙂
A presto, Geoff
Serena:
@Franco Perin Ciao Franco, una piccola precisazione 😉 l’uso dell’articolo determinativo davanti ai nomi di persona non è dialettale, ma tipico della lingua parlata e non solo nel Nord Italia. Infatti secondo la Treccani “In area toscana, l’uso dell’articolo davanti ai primi nomi femminili è noto e consueto sin dall’antichità .” Ti mando il link a questo articolo perché è molto interessante:
http://www.treccani.it/lingua_italiana/domande_e_risposte/grammatica/grammatica_058.html
Saluti da Serena
Franco Perin:
El. Sig. Geoff, non mi sarei mai permesso di salutarla con un “ciao” se non avessi visto che l’ha usato anche lei con Pamela (ma magari la conosce bene, per cui mi sono sbagliato). Grazie Serena per il link postato. Mi sembra che ribadisca la mia osservazione. Geoff, lei è permaloso però…
😉
Geoff:
@Franco Perin Okay Franco, adesso continuiamo questo discorso nella mia lingua madre, le va bene?
Firstly, I don’t think you’ve actually understood the nature of our blog. One of the real strength that we have, and something that makes our articles stand out from the mass of others that you’ll find on the internet, is that we largely concentrate on colloquial Italian.
Let me clarify your ‘piccolo appunto’ and explain why it is actually incorrect: the use of the article before female names is NOT dialetto, but colloquial, i.e. it’s commonly used in every day spoken Italian … there is an important difference:
* Dialetto Pontremolese: alùra, sì, che martedì sera, sèt dû stêmbar, a s’artruvrêma an mès ala stra par magner e ber an cumpagnìa.
* Italiano colloquiale: allora, sì, che martedì sera, sette di settembre, ci ritroveremo in mezzo alla strada per mangiare e bere in compagnia.
The former would be of no use to our readers apart from its curiosity value, the latter, on the other hand, would be very useful.
And that’s exactly what our readers need. Many of our readers have studied Italian for years, but are totally lost when they come to Italy because they’ve learnt ‘text book’ Italian, and not la lingua della strada. If students of Italian come to Italy having been told that one does not use the article before names and then they hear “dov’è la Maria Adele?” … “mi hanno detto che la Rosanna sta meglio oggi” etc. they will get confused and loose confidence in what they’ve learnt.
Now let me explain why I mentioned your use of ciao: If in any situation you decide to make a critical observation make sure that what you write or say is absolutely correct. You chose (incorrectly, given the context and nature of our blog) to pick up on a perceived incorrect usage of the Italian language, but then proceeded to use the Italian language incorrectly yourself by addressing me with the familiar ciao.
Personally, I’m not offended if new students of Italian address me in the personal form … they’re learning after all! In fact, many of our readers have been following our articles for years, and some have become good friends, even coming from as far away as America and Australia to visit us. So naturally you’ll see us using the informal a lot in our replies to readers.
Perhaps you can understand now that I was not being ‘permaloso’, in my reply to you, but merely ironic. Let me also clarify that I don’t consider myself to be perfect. Both Serena and myself often publish mistakes … bilingual blogging is pretty demanding and complex. However, we are always grateful when these mistakes are drawn to our attention in the appropriate manner.
Here, for example, is a recent reply from Serena to a reader who kindly pointed out two mistakes in a recent blog:
“Grazie infinite Elaine per i complimenti e per le gentili correzioni, ho provveduto subito a correggerle. Chissà cosa significa ‘mutane’, avevo lo spellcheck acceso ma questa parola non me l’ha segnalata. Voglio fare un po’ di ricerca.
Tanti saluti da Serena”
If you’d like to help us with our articles perhaps you could share your personal experiences as a native Italian, which I assume you are? Our readers would really appreciate that. How about it?
E se vuole rispondermi in inglese mi farebbe molto piacere … di tanto in tanto ho bisogno di praticarla! 🙂
Franco Perin:
E poi si dice ti passo Serena. Lol, si scherza eh.
CordialitÃ
berthe:
Crepi!