7 July 1997. What a frustrating morning this was! There are times when I simply need to speak English because I don't know how to say what I want to say in Italian; and there are times when I need to have things explained to me in English. This morning we were studying passato remoto, called a "literary" tense, because it's used more in written Italian than in spoken. Delia asked me a question which I was supposed to answer using passato remoto -- but while I was pausing to think, she answered the question for me! And it wasn't even the answer I wanted to give. She does that a lot. So I tried to tell her, "That wasn't what I wanted to say," but the Italian wouldn't come to me in my frustration. As I struggled to think of the words, she kept saying, "E' difficile; passato remoto è molto difficile, e non è usato tanto nella lingua parlata." ("Passato remoto is very difficult and not used much in spoken language.") Finally, the words came to me: "Non è quello che volevo dire!" ("That isn't what I wanted to say.") Then she'd ask another question; for example, "Cosa faresti quando andasti a Londra?" ("What did you do when you went to London?") Well -- first of all, I have to think of something to say; then I have to think of how to say it in passato remoto. But while I'm still thinking of what to say in the first place, she supplies an answer for me. What the hell did I do in London? She didn't even give me chance to come up with that, much less how to say it in Italian, still less how to say it in damn passato remoto! I got more and more frustrated, so finally I just gave up and let her talk away.
9 July 1997. Finally this week the weather is what I had expected it to be -- clear and warm. Glorious. But the nights are cool. It's strange -- yesterday it reached 100F in the afernoon, but it stayed cool inside the house, even though there's no air conditioning. How I adore this sun! It's so much drier than Houston; you don't sweat nearly as much, and the breeze from the hills is very refreshing.
I wonder why all the houses here have green shutters? Also, the window blinds are green, and the net curtains they hang outside the kitchen doors to keep flies out. Even in Pisa and Siena and Lucca, the shutters are all green.
It's very pleasant here on the terrazzo, enjoying the sunny, breezy day and looking out at the hills. The birds are chirping, the chickens at La Fosca's house are clucking, dogs are barking, and somewhere in the cool dark shade of the neighboring woods the cat Puffi is sleeping.
(Later) I'm in my cool room now, the window is open to the sunny day. I can hear Vittorio working in the garden, snip-snip-brush-brush; I can hear the workers next door grunting and growling to each other in some garbled dialect which I can't understand; the dogs are still barking at God knows what; and I'm surprisingly hungry after that rich, heavy lunch. My reflexes are very sluggish today; everything feels heavy. Heavy and lazy.
This is another thing that puzzles me -- in a place where the summers get hot and air conditioning is rare, which means one has to open the windows, why the hell aren't there any screens? You open the persiane to let light in because Delia won't let you turn lights on during the day unless it's absolutely necessary, and you open the glass to let air in, then all the flies and bees come in. You could, if you wanted to sit in semi-darkness, roll down the persiane so that only the tiny slits are open. Or you could, if you don't mind suffocating, roll the persiane all the way up and close the glass. The simplest solution to all this is, of course, to put screens on the windows. But there are none. Anywhere, almost.
Delia just called to Vittorio to clean up for dinner. I heard him pause under my window to talk to Puffi-the-Cat in his peculiar wheezy voice: "Puff-eeee! Che fai? Dove sei stato?" Puffi hears the rattle of dishes and knows it's time to eat; he comes slithering from the bosco and if the kitchen door is closed, you hear his hoarse miao, asking to be let in. Yesterday as I was practicing, I heard "miao-miao-miaaaoo" and turned to find him standing near the piano, asking me, "Where's Delia? Where's Vittorio? I'm hungry!" Tremendo!
10 July 1997. God, it's beautiful! Today I took two lovely strolls down the road toward Celle dei Puccini. The countryside on that stretch of road just outside our village is almost wide open and very sparsely inhabited. I returned by way of the church, where I usually walk, and stopped in front of the church to sit and rest. There are two beautiful white doves that live there, a husband and wife. This morning they were having breakfast -- someone had left some grain on the pavement. And this afternoon they were back in the eaves of the porch, staying cool. I see them there at the church every day when I pass by.
11 July 1997. There is a major flaw in this total immersion process: sometimes, during a lesson, I want to ask a question, but I can't express it clearly enough in Italian; therefore, she can't give me the right answer and I would get frustrated. So my question remains unanswered. This morning, I must have spent 15 minutes trying to ask the same question, trying every way I could, even using diagrams on paper. She just couldn't understand what it was I wanted to know. She gave me a gezillion answers, but none were the right one. Finally, I just gave up and said, "Basta! Avanti." So we went on to review imperatives. The exercise was (written in Italian, of course):
Tell your friend to:
(followed by a list of commands)
So, okay, I start to give the answers using the personal form of imperative beause I'm talking to a friend, right? Well, she started to correct me, using the formal imperative. I said, "Ma è un amico!" She was just confusing the hell out of me, and I wanted to quit right then and there. I mean, if there's one thing I'm absolutely clear about, it's the personal imperative.
I tell you, I would have killed to be able to speak English this morning.
All in all, I think I was making more progress studying on my own. The only thing I can't do on my own is converse. Maybe Delia just isn't the right teacher for me. I catch on to most things very quickly; I only need one clear explanation and one clear example, I don't need 25 examples, that's just wasting my time. I need a teacher who will give me more time to come up with correct answers rather than jump in and supply them after only five seconds; I need a teacher who will let me finish my sentences rather than anticipate and finish them for me; I need a teacher who simply talks less and teaches more.
I wonder if Delia considers me a difficult student? God knows I've never been a model student; I always hated school, I never did homework, and in the 17 or so years I spent in a classroom, I didn't learn a hill of beans. But I have to admit, the fault was mine, because I had no interest. And why didn't I, when I can be so incredibly, almost maddeningly, self-motivated? Once I get the notion in my head to do something, I go at it like a bloodhound. So why didn't these notions ever come to me in a classroom?
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