I'm half-Mexican and grew up with Spanish. I'm not as strong as a speaker as I'd like to be, but I love the language and can understand it pretty well.
(Question: Would you be interested in exchanging recommendations/blurbs for our welcome pages? I've really enjoyed your newsletter. I completely understand if not! Just wanted to kindly ask.)
In the "Which language is most beautiful?" debate, I'm going with French. There's something about listening to a native French speaker which I find mesmerizing. Second, oddly enough, would be Norwegian, which is probably more of a personal quirk and due to my experience in Norway than anything.
Oct 20, 2022·edited Oct 20, 2022Liked by Cheryl A. Ossola
Italian and Sicilian were the background sounds of my childhood and youth. I understood a lot but my parents back in the '60s apparently wanted me to be an American kid. That didn't sit right with me--they had their own language to say what they didn't want us to know. So I learned the language as a form of rebellion or revenge. I felt I was taking what was owed me and which felt comfortable to me. After years of French in school, learning Italian was simple; it felt like repeating French but with easier pronunciation. Plus, it's more fun. I mean, who can not love saying "mozzafiato"? Plus, there's nothing like hearing that background Italian babble on a train or plane. It's a great soiundtrack, for me, good white noise.
always delightful, cheryl. speaking of seduction: the hilarious film ‘a fish called wanda’ speaks to this. in it, jamie lee curtis (wanda) finds kevin kline's (otto) italian irresistible regardless how much he suffers his vocab limitation basically to food groups.
that said, like every italian boasts: “we have THE BEST…fill in the blank here: lemons, lobster, coffee, chocolate, wine, EVOO, and apparently Italian...THE MOST beautiful LANGUAGE.
Cheryl, This was so much fun to read even though I don't know Italian at all. But I've always loved the sound of it. I cannot believe how much can be expressed by stressing a specific syllable. You're doing a fabulous job of explaining Italian to folks like me. What would be cool is if you could attach an audio snipped to it so we can hear it? I'm just back from a fantastic trip to Israel and (at https://bit.ly/3Dag3VC) I write about how Hebrew was brought back as a living language. I'm so annoyed that in my early years I never learned to speak Hindi (I understand spoken Hindi fairly well) or Malayalam, languages I had a lot of exposure to as a child. I can speak okay French but my vocabulary is pathetic. My accent is nice, I've been told, but honestly who cares about a great accent when the vocabulary sucks? I speak Tamil (my kind of Tamil infused with quite a bit of Malayalam) and I can read and write in the language as well. I've been thinking about how a great hold on several languages would have made my English much richer. Thanks for your fascinating posts. I may not get to read all of them but know that your work is engaging and informative.
I'm half-Mexican and grew up with Spanish. I'm not as strong as a speaker as I'd like to be, but I love the language and can understand it pretty well.
(Question: Would you be interested in exchanging recommendations/blurbs for our welcome pages? I've really enjoyed your newsletter. I completely understand if not! Just wanted to kindly ask.)
Hey
Aren't problema, programma, sistema, cardiogramma, nouns and not verbs?
In the "Which language is most beautiful?" debate, I'm going with French. There's something about listening to a native French speaker which I find mesmerizing. Second, oddly enough, would be Norwegian, which is probably more of a personal quirk and due to my experience in Norway than anything.
Italian and Sicilian were the background sounds of my childhood and youth. I understood a lot but my parents back in the '60s apparently wanted me to be an American kid. That didn't sit right with me--they had their own language to say what they didn't want us to know. So I learned the language as a form of rebellion or revenge. I felt I was taking what was owed me and which felt comfortable to me. After years of French in school, learning Italian was simple; it felt like repeating French but with easier pronunciation. Plus, it's more fun. I mean, who can not love saying "mozzafiato"? Plus, there's nothing like hearing that background Italian babble on a train or plane. It's a great soiundtrack, for me, good white noise.
This was awesome. For anyone who has tried to learn Italian and struggled, ( I would bet that’s all of us) Please write more soon.
always delightful, cheryl. speaking of seduction: the hilarious film ‘a fish called wanda’ speaks to this. in it, jamie lee curtis (wanda) finds kevin kline's (otto) italian irresistible regardless how much he suffers his vocab limitation basically to food groups.
https://youtu.be/6zquYbMbFNk
that said, like every italian boasts: “we have THE BEST…fill in the blank here: lemons, lobster, coffee, chocolate, wine, EVOO, and apparently Italian...THE MOST beautiful LANGUAGE.
MIGHT very well be. or...might not.
il n’y a pas de quoi
ciao
felice :)
I'm going to need to keep coming back to this for pointers!
Cheryl, This was so much fun to read even though I don't know Italian at all. But I've always loved the sound of it. I cannot believe how much can be expressed by stressing a specific syllable. You're doing a fabulous job of explaining Italian to folks like me. What would be cool is if you could attach an audio snipped to it so we can hear it? I'm just back from a fantastic trip to Israel and (at https://bit.ly/3Dag3VC) I write about how Hebrew was brought back as a living language. I'm so annoyed that in my early years I never learned to speak Hindi (I understand spoken Hindi fairly well) or Malayalam, languages I had a lot of exposure to as a child. I can speak okay French but my vocabulary is pathetic. My accent is nice, I've been told, but honestly who cares about a great accent when the vocabulary sucks? I speak Tamil (my kind of Tamil infused with quite a bit of Malayalam) and I can read and write in the language as well. I've been thinking about how a great hold on several languages would have made my English much richer. Thanks for your fascinating posts. I may not get to read all of them but know that your work is engaging and informative.
Thanks for the heads up, I will watch for the dog piece
For some reason, Italian has always struck me as sounding arrogant and pretentious, like it's trying to hard when it really doesn't have to.