Speaking Italian

 August 1, 2010

            When I met up with my American friends, before going to the contrada party for Nicchio, I was with Silvia and her friend. Silvia is Italian, her friend Peruvian, and we communicate through Italian. Well, when I was standing there talking to my American classmates trying to figure out what their plan was they asked me how I spoke to them if they only spoke Italian or Spanish. Well duh, in Italian. I responded to these incredulous Americans in Italian, because I was in the mindset of using Italian—I only speak it every day after all—and I wanted them to see that I really do know how to speak Italian. They all gaped at me. They were impressed at how little I had to think before speaking; in fact, I really do not bother to think first. I usually just speak. I speak the same way I might speak to someone in English. Only occasionally, when I cannot remember a word, or am not sure how to phrase a sentence do I stop to think about how to say something.

I can do this because I have forced myself to THINK in Italian. I do not translate what I hear into English and then think up a sentence in English and translate it into Italian. I just switch my mind over to Italian. It is similar to playing the violin or piano—at a certain point you just know that that particular circle over that particular line is an E and you hold it for one count. Later, you learn to recognize that that same E always corresponds with a particular finger position. As you advance more, you learn that there are nuances to notes, irregularities, and varying finger patters that will all produce the same or similar phrases. Finally, you learn to trust your instincts, your muscle memory, and to just look at the music, know the notes, and trust your fingers to play them correctly. In fact, if you attempt to think about the notes you are playing, you will find that it slows you down, you lose the beat, and you end up lost. It works better to just THINK and REACT and SPEAK in music. Perhaps having played the violin and piano gives me this advantage. I already know how to let go and just trust myself to remember.

The way I speak Italian is the same as the way I practice for a piano or violin performance—“performance mode.” I will occasionally stop to work out the kinks, but mostly I attempt to finish the entire piece without stopping, errors and all. Naturally, there are times in which the entire rhythm of the piece is thrown off and it is necessary to start again from the top after only a moment’s pause to recall what precisely I am attempting to play. When I speak Italian, I am almost always in “performance mode.”