The Language of Italia

As I reported, I studied many hours to memorize fifteen verb conjugations. When I met with Gabriella today, our last day of school, it was with a look of gleeful anticipation that she grabbed my notebook with the list of conjugations, gave me a friendly look of warning, and began testing me verbally. I clung to my cheat-sheet, knowing I would need the clues to the first word for each conjugation group—or I would surely get them mixed up. Gabriella saw my cheat sheet and said, “No, no, no!” in the clipped and rather emphatic way Italians say that word. She tried to grab the paper, but I wouldn’t let her have it. She laughed and said, “Okay! Okay!” and off we went. I would say my grade for the verbal test was C-minus. I knew some of the conjugations really well; others I mixed up; and now and then I created a conjugation no one had ever heard of, which made Gabriella laugh. I think Gabriella is getting the picture: I am not an A student of Italian. I need time to think between answers, and if I don’t fire the list off, she jumps in. I’m like a kid saying, “Wait! Wait! I know this! Let me think!” A few lessons ago we changed our routine, to my great relief. Gabriella had given me one of those insufferable fill-in-the-blank worksheets: with a list of words I couldn’t begin to read, and sentences with blanks I was supposed to fill in with those words. I puzzled over the page as she idly gazed at her cell phone. Finally, I said, “Gabriella, I have no idea what these words mean! Io non want to do this. Let’s just parla.” She looked relieved, put her phone down, and we started sharing. She told me all about her lifestyle, where she lives, what her daily schedule is, who her family is made up of. She spoke slowly and I asked questions in a mix of English and very primitive Italian. Then it was my turn and I told her about my life, with my few words of Italian. With her prompts, I made it through my spiel. Sharing became the mainstay of our lessons and our private form of language immersion. Our relationship reminds me of the relationship I have as tutor for my beloved adult reading student at home. He is in his fifties, struggles with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and yet, never gives up on learning to read. If I get impatient, it makes no difference at all to how fast he can go, so why be impatient? If he gets discouraged there is no payoff for him or me. So why should he get discouraged? The point is to work together to do the best we both can. We work together as a team, and being a team is one of the most rewarding parts of the experience I’ve had as a tutor—and now as a very fallible student. For this last day of school, I prepared a letter, written in Italian, to read to Gabriella. I tried to express in my letter how grateful I am that, through the group classes I attended (frustrating as they were), and Gabrielle’s gentle tutoring, I now know what and how to study on my own when I get home, in order to continue my progress. I think I saw a trace of tears in Gabriella’s dark Italian eyes as I read her my letter. I hoped she felt like I feel when my reading student says I have taken him out of the cracks (in the education system), he fell into when he tried to learn to read as a child. After I read her my letter, Gabriella asked the question I’ve heard from many people: “Why do you want to learn Italian?” What the question implies, I’ve concluded, is “Why go to so much effort to learn something that is so difficult for you when you don’t really need it for anything tangible?” This question has been perplexing, but, finally, I have my answer: I study Italian just because it’s beautiful. Some people paint with watercolors, some love to draw, or color, or knit, or play cards. I love to learn Italian. When I’m studying Italian, online with Duo Lingo, on audio tapes, on the radio or using Google Translate, I am completely engrossed and time flies. When I hear Italian spoken, or say a word of it myself, I am amazed by the lilting, cheerful, cadence of it, the music in it, the miracle of it. Communication has always been the center of everything for me—that my attention remains centered on learning and teaching language is not really that surprising. If my reading student can someday enjoy reading a simple book on his own, if he can read a sign on the street and understand what it is telling him, God has blessed him. If, today, I can decipher one more sentence in Italian and maybe even make up one of my own that makes sense to an Italian, God has blessed me! They are worthy goals and lots of fun.