An Italian Tea Party, Then Back to Spanish

On Friday, I woke up and continued my intensive Italian review, in preparation for our 3 p.m. tea with the Italian relative of a relative. Specifically, this is the mother of my husband’s sister’s husband. Got that? 

Three rolled around. I was ready. And eager to see how competent I would be after a couple of days spent trying to revive what I learned this past winter.

Then 3:05 came.

Then 3:10. No one.

I started to get a little concerned. We had arranged this date through her son, not directly with her, and we didn’t have her phone number. What if there had been a miscommunication and I had spent all that time reviewing for nothing? I would never have set aside my Spanish books if it weren’t for this tea.

3:15. Still nothing. Except a little panic.

3:16. Relief. Our guest arrived, along with her Italian friend. I was ecstatic. I promptly began trying out my Italian on them.

Before I go into the details: let me just say I am so, so glad I did the review. If I hadn’t, I would absolutely not have been able to conjure up a huge percentage of what I was able to say to them during our lovely tea. It isn’t that my Italian knowledge was gone, but it was dormant, sleeping under a thick blanket of Spanish.  

Instead of sitting there in mute frustration, I was able to talk to them, in Italian, about relatives, their visit, this project, and many other things. I made a ton of mistakes, sometimes got stuck on ideas, sometimes rerouted my thoughts through different vocabulary, and sometimes had to consult with the Italian friend, who speaks English, on a word or concept that I couldn’t figure out how to explain.

Sometimes it was too much for me and everything exploded in my head and I couldn’t come up with anything at all. A kind of brain paralysis. But then my brain would become unparalyzed and I would be ready to try again with something else.

Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t do all that great. I definitely didn’t do close to as well as I was doing by the end of January, when my studies were fresh in my head. But if I had spent another few days reviewing, I believe I would have been able to remember much of what I learned. It is definitely not gone.

It is a very, very cool thing to go from having little language in common with someone I have known for 16 years to suddenly—from one encounter to the next—being able to communicate with that person. Like opening a door onto a new world.