Profound

Language is a funny thing. I have come along way from my abilities in January. Sometimes mid-conversation my brain is like “Woah! I can’t believe I’m getting all of this, are they still talking to me in Italian?” Yet, what I realize is that what’s most important in a conversation were all the things that remained unsaid. I’m sure all languages are like this. Its never about what people say, but how they say it, and what they actually mean to convey.
**“Did you find you room ok?” asked my host dad the first week. (Im thinking, well, um, yes…my room I’ve been in it for a few days now. Found it!)… But this is just the way they ask how is your room? Is everything ok?
** I come back from the beach. “Did you take a bath?” an old man on the bus asks me. (I’m thinking what? Why is this old man asking this?)… This is way to ask if you went swimming.
** There are two different ways to ask someone to go out to dinner, coffee, etc. One implies that the person asking is paying. My professoress warned us early to be careful with our Italian friends otherwise we’d end up paying for a meal, or find ourselves unintentionally on a date!
In this respect, learning a new language is not simply memorizing verb endings and vocabulary, but understanding the culture and the context in which things are said. Its taken me ages to figure out when Stefano is joking with me, or when he’s being serious. Then again, whenever I try and be sarcastic he is also left confused. (Little known fact: sarcasm is a new thing in the Italian language. Like it didn’t exist until recently. I know it sounds absurd, and maybe its one of those things you cant get until you come over here and try translating your sarcastic comments in Italian and realize that the grammar isn’t really structured for it. My professoressa explains this much better.)
And of course there’s text messaging – which I should take a class in. You know how we have abbreviations? Well they do too. And all of my Italian friends text me in what looks like a jumbled mess of the alphabet. (Perche becomes xk… and before long I get messages like this: so ke x te…) Oh and they LOVE the smilies!
HOWEVER. There was a moment Wednesday night, (or Thursday morning, depending on how you want to classify 3 am) where it all came together. I was dancing with my Italian friends at this disco. We were all shouting the lyrics of this song together…and Italian song. I didn’t feel like the self-conscious American being oogled by Italian men, standing awkwardly in a foreign world…cause I wasn’t. I had cracked into the other world and was “Italian.” I knew that unless I told someone I was an American student, they’d never know otherwise. Better still was knowing that not only had I cracked into the world, but having found a sense of peace and comfort in that world.
When I told my friend that I will miss Italy, he gave me the best reply, “Si mancero” (It will miss you.)