I am taking Beginning Italian and I have my first quiz tomorrow. Not a big deal--mostly a few verbs (essere, avere, stare), forms for singular and plural, and definite and indefinite articles. The only thing I'm a little nervy about are the definite articles, since we just learned those last night, and there seems to be an awful lot of forms for them. Still and all, Italian. My thoughts?
It's gorgeous. I'm in a class that is specifically for grad students who need to read it, so it's not very much speaking, but even when we make tragic attempts to say it--it's beautiful. I took German my senior year, and lemme tell you--not the same at. all. Even of the tiny range of words I know, there are some goodies--professoressa (professor, female), motocicletta (motorcycle), cuarantacinque (55), luglio (July), abbastanza bene (pretty good), not to mention all the musical terms--andante, adagio, allegretto, scherzando, and dolce! It makes my mouth feel nice to say these things.
And the place names! We had to read a little paragraph about the regions of Italy. Try these on for size: Liguria, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Abruzzi, Campania, Basilicata. I've wanted to go to Italy ever since, well, I saw a slide of a Titian painting. Learning a little bit of the language is making me feel like I will get there. And until then, I'll be perfecting my lasagne making techniques and getting ready to hang with the dudes at the Marco Polo club in Jamestown!
(Also, it's annoying when Americans--who know Italian--order "a panino" or "biscotto" even those are the correct singular forms of panini and biscotti. Just sayin'.)
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