Language

It's been said, I have a ponshon for languages. I don't doubt this, although I have no idea what a penchant is. Being in Italy has awakened my foreign language brain module, but I don’t feel like it’s yet wiped the sleep from its eyes nor stretched the stretches out of its sleepy limbs.

I am troubled by the access to Italian grammar that I have. The LP book contains but a few phrases, useful though they are. We’ve also a tiny Italian phrasebook, with a decent mini-dictionary at the back. But what I really like when I’m learning a language is a nice thorough guide to conjugation, prepositions and other key words like ‘more’ and ‘too’. Without this, how the hell am I going to construct whatever sentences suit my fancy at the minute, such as “Do you have life insurance?” Hang on, the little book might actually help me figure this out… “Ha l’assicuarazione della vita?” Alright!

As I was saying, the mini-dictionary is decent, and does include some verbs and some conjugations, but it doesn’t spell out the rules that I might determine for myself how to conjugate some newly discovered verb. Anyway, this might all be an excuse for me not to immerse myself fully in the oily waters of the Italian language and frolic in the frothy bubbles of the Venetian dialect. Mi piace questo reggiseno! E tuo?

Perhaps I’ll go and join the Potsdamer Institut for Klimaforschung, thus combining my love of languages with my love of institutes. Wifey encourages this development, so long as she gets first dibs on housespousehood. And the child still sleeps. But before any of that could happen, I’d have to establish myself as a bona fide climate scientist, and I’m yet to do this. In fact I have a fear that perhaps I’m only good for studying, not doing science.

The other night I was reminded of a habitual dream I used to dream, in which I am somewhere about a school or campus, and vaguely uneasy, because yes I’m late for, or have completely forgotten to go to German class! Oh no! I’ve actually missed a heap of these classes! Granted, my German has fallen from a great height, so even down here it’s ok. There’s not too much to worry about. But it’s not like me to miss classes! Ah, blast. Hang on, am I even studying German? Apparently so. Sometimes I realise in the dream that I’m not any more. But the dreams have always taken place at a time when I don’t study German. What a strange recurring dream.