lezioni d'italiano per stranieri
Every Tuesday and Thursday morning I spend one and a half hours studying Italian. But it's not a mere session of grammar or vocabulary. The language class is much more than that. In fact, it is not too far from a kind of a zoo.
I owe a lot of thanks to Vides, an NGO that coordinates (among their other activities) the twice-weekly classes made specially for the numerous local foreigners. The differences from your average training-firm sessions are considerable. First of all, it's free. The teachers are volunteers - retired Italians that don't mind explaining alphabets, grammar rules or catholic traditions to immigrants of all shapes and sizes. The students are almost all women (the men, if there are any, go to work and can't spare mornings in classes). The didactic materials are anything that comes up - improvised conversation, photocopied grammar exercises, fiction books, Italian textbooks from Asian countries, and - always - world maps. Usually a study-group will involve as many nationalities as there are students and the cultural, geographical, linguistic and what-not differences give the teachers an inexhaustible amount of conversation material. This is what I mean by a zoo: making a usual introduction round can, and usually will, resemble a ride around the world.
Ciao, I'm Maris, I come from Estonia. Ess-too-nii-aa. It's in the northeast of Europe. (Pointing on the map) here, near Finland. No, not Latvia. Estonia. I live on this island here (interested nods and smiles at the mention of an island; luckily Saaremaa is big enough to be visible). And so it goes on. I'm unique in not having moved for work, and in coming from an EU member country (with the new exception of the numerous Romanians).
There is usually someone from India, someone from Moldova, one or two Romanians, a Russian, someone from South America, someone from Morocco, someone from Ghana or other parts of Africa. Africans tend to be quite advanced, though the accent can be quite strong. Indians and the Ghanese speak good English - this usually makes the teacher a little uneasy, because the opportunity to explain things in their language seems to be in reach, but is yet too far (few local Italians older than 40 will know English). Some of the women speaking only languages that use alphabets other than the Latin one are in for a difficult stretch of learning the letters the toddler-way: having the alphabets spelled out to them in a high voice accompanied by a mimic normally used to keep babies from crying (but then again - how else could it be done?). The Brazilians and also, Romanians, are greatly advantaged as their own languages work in much the same way as Italian does; they move along fast, but often retain the melody of their native language. Great numbers of Muslim women have only come to Italy to tend to the family while the husbands work, and usually don't interact with Italians (the same is true for many of the Indians I see) and this slows down their learning process considerably. I've always seen them as intriguing puzzles - you never know what's inside.
Then there are the Eastern-European women who have come to work as nurses to the elderly or housekeepers; not because this is their calling, but because ironing bedsheets pays so much more in Italy than being a lecturer, teacher, or even a dentist does in Russia. Often their families back at home have no other source of income, sometimes the husband is ill (or worse, likes to drink), and the teenage children need a lot of support without being able give much input of their own yet. These women (badanti they call them here) tend to live alone, devote themselves entirely to work and send as much money as possible back home. This is not very difficult to understand for Estonians. Despite all the economic growth and the pretense of being a developed "Western" country, the same amount of money still buys three times more food in Estonia than here in Italy; the difference in salaries compared to Finland not too many kilometres away is quite striking; and all the time more people leave for a shorter or longer period abroad. But seeing the other side of this migration is a very stark contrast to what I've gotten used to thinking when I hear "work abroad".
One of these badanti from Moldova - let's call her Ana - is 42, has lived in Italy for 10 years already and calls home every day to her pride and joy: her 17-year-old son. She learned to use the email to see the photos he sends her. I hear how much she pays for his education, all the necessary books and materials (it's an appalling amount of money), how long she hasn't seen him and how well he does in school. It's enough to make any woman feel a little sad.
Then there is the 6-year old Indian girl - an unbelievably sweet little being - who used to come to the class with her mother for a while and speaks better Italian than she does. I wonder who, or of which culture, she will consider herself to be in 10 years' time?
This exciting and mysterious carousel of colourful saris definitely makes up half of the reasons why I go. The second (or should I say the first?) is my own learning process. After spending some time in a fun, but too simple group, I'm now the single student of a former lawyer who knows Latin and French, is fluent in Esperanto and considers English to be a wacky language where people say "apple" and write "banana". I insist on translating random pieces of text to start getting a grip on how Italian could sound nice when written down; on going through explanations of the passato remoto (a scary grammar dinosaur that is yet alive and well in the South of Italy); and discussing the grammatical aspects of the dialects. He insists on explaining the Latin roots of important words (sometimes ones that exist in English and I learned when I was 10); describing how the grammar used to look a long time ago; and dismissing the dialect-issue. I think we both appreciate ending up together though. People who go to the language classes are generally practical and busy (why else did they move?) and I'm likely to be the most bookish one. Or at least the one with most time to muse over passato remoto.
Even if I miss out on a number of lessons for various reasons (the silliest one was last time when I missed a plane and didn't make it back from abroad on time), it's comforting to know that there is a way to follow what my language does. Before I discovered the classes, I was quite lazy with learning, as most people around me spoke English. By now I've switched to Italian as an everyday communication language, but talking to friends doesn't help me remember the gender exceptions (la foto; il problema) or get the hang of the subjunctive properly. Without the classes I'd most likely end up in an embarrassing situation where I talk as a local, but am completely illiterate. Well, to some degree this is already the case. But I'll keep trying. More delightful info on the passato remoto to come!
I owe a lot of thanks to Vides, an NGO that coordinates (among their other activities) the twice-weekly classes made specially for the numerous local foreigners. The differences from your average training-firm sessions are considerable. First of all, it's free. The teachers are volunteers - retired Italians that don't mind explaining alphabets, grammar rules or catholic traditions to immigrants of all shapes and sizes. The students are almost all women (the men, if there are any, go to work and can't spare mornings in classes). The didactic materials are anything that comes up - improvised conversation, photocopied grammar exercises, fiction books, Italian textbooks from Asian countries, and - always - world maps. Usually a study-group will involve as many nationalities as there are students and the cultural, geographical, linguistic and what-not differences give the teachers an inexhaustible amount of conversation material. This is what I mean by a zoo: making a usual introduction round can, and usually will, resemble a ride around the world.
Ciao, I'm Maris, I come from Estonia. Ess-too-nii-aa. It's in the northeast of Europe. (Pointing on the map) here, near Finland. No, not Latvia. Estonia. I live on this island here (interested nods and smiles at the mention of an island; luckily Saaremaa is big enough to be visible). And so it goes on. I'm unique in not having moved for work, and in coming from an EU member country (with the new exception of the numerous Romanians).
There is usually someone from India, someone from Moldova, one or two Romanians, a Russian, someone from South America, someone from Morocco, someone from Ghana or other parts of Africa. Africans tend to be quite advanced, though the accent can be quite strong. Indians and the Ghanese speak good English - this usually makes the teacher a little uneasy, because the opportunity to explain things in their language seems to be in reach, but is yet too far (few local Italians older than 40 will know English). Some of the women speaking only languages that use alphabets other than the Latin one are in for a difficult stretch of learning the letters the toddler-way: having the alphabets spelled out to them in a high voice accompanied by a mimic normally used to keep babies from crying (but then again - how else could it be done?). The Brazilians and also, Romanians, are greatly advantaged as their own languages work in much the same way as Italian does; they move along fast, but often retain the melody of their native language. Great numbers of Muslim women have only come to Italy to tend to the family while the husbands work, and usually don't interact with Italians (the same is true for many of the Indians I see) and this slows down their learning process considerably. I've always seen them as intriguing puzzles - you never know what's inside.
Then there are the Eastern-European women who have come to work as nurses to the elderly or housekeepers; not because this is their calling, but because ironing bedsheets pays so much more in Italy than being a lecturer, teacher, or even a dentist does in Russia. Often their families back at home have no other source of income, sometimes the husband is ill (or worse, likes to drink), and the teenage children need a lot of support without being able give much input of their own yet. These women (badanti they call them here) tend to live alone, devote themselves entirely to work and send as much money as possible back home. This is not very difficult to understand for Estonians. Despite all the economic growth and the pretense of being a developed "Western" country, the same amount of money still buys three times more food in Estonia than here in Italy; the difference in salaries compared to Finland not too many kilometres away is quite striking; and all the time more people leave for a shorter or longer period abroad. But seeing the other side of this migration is a very stark contrast to what I've gotten used to thinking when I hear "work abroad".
One of these badanti from Moldova - let's call her Ana - is 42, has lived in Italy for 10 years already and calls home every day to her pride and joy: her 17-year-old son. She learned to use the email to see the photos he sends her. I hear how much she pays for his education, all the necessary books and materials (it's an appalling amount of money), how long she hasn't seen him and how well he does in school. It's enough to make any woman feel a little sad.
Then there is the 6-year old Indian girl - an unbelievably sweet little being - who used to come to the class with her mother for a while and speaks better Italian than she does. I wonder who, or of which culture, she will consider herself to be in 10 years' time?
This exciting and mysterious carousel of colourful saris definitely makes up half of the reasons why I go. The second (or should I say the first?) is my own learning process. After spending some time in a fun, but too simple group, I'm now the single student of a former lawyer who knows Latin and French, is fluent in Esperanto and considers English to be a wacky language where people say "apple" and write "banana". I insist on translating random pieces of text to start getting a grip on how Italian could sound nice when written down; on going through explanations of the passato remoto (a scary grammar dinosaur that is yet alive and well in the South of Italy); and discussing the grammatical aspects of the dialects. He insists on explaining the Latin roots of important words (sometimes ones that exist in English and I learned when I was 10); describing how the grammar used to look a long time ago; and dismissing the dialect-issue. I think we both appreciate ending up together though. People who go to the language classes are generally practical and busy (why else did they move?) and I'm likely to be the most bookish one. Or at least the one with most time to muse over passato remoto.
Even if I miss out on a number of lessons for various reasons (the silliest one was last time when I missed a plane and didn't make it back from abroad on time), it's comforting to know that there is a way to follow what my language does. Before I discovered the classes, I was quite lazy with learning, as most people around me spoke English. By now I've switched to Italian as an everyday communication language, but talking to friends doesn't help me remember the gender exceptions (la foto; il problema) or get the hang of the subjunctive properly. Without the classes I'd most likely end up in an embarrassing situation where I talk as a local, but am completely illiterate. Well, to some degree this is already the case. But I'll keep trying. More delightful info on the passato remoto to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment