This morning I woke up thinking “Quello era il figlio della mamma”! That’s Italian for “That’s the child of the mother”, which contextually, I have no idea how it tied into my dream, nor what I was dreaming about. BUT! After learning Italian for two or so years, I was thinking in it? SO RAD.
When I tell people I’m learning Italian their first question is always “Oh, are you Italian?“.
No!
2nd question: Why the fuck are you learning Italian?
ME: Because I love giallo movies.
Gialli/Giallo are crime/horror films from Italy in the 1970s, typically with freudian themes that are over sexed, overly violent, overly artsy. It actually makes little sense that watching Italian movies without dubbing/subtitles on is why I would choose to learn the language since Italian filmmakers would not record sync sound in their pictures, then dub everything. Both in English and in Italian (and whatever other languages they were shipping). Which helped them shoot much faster and cheaper, as well as you could bring in American actors and have them work with a bunch of Italian actors, and they didn’t really have to understand each other as long as their mouths looked like they were moving the correct amount. Also, if you’ve ever filmed anything, you know how much of a pain ambient noise is.
Why else would I learn a foreign language? I took 3 years of Spanish in High School and I can remember the words “Quasidilla” and “Bibliotecca”. I’ve always had problems remembering and learning languages. So I wanted to do something difficult to prove that I could do it.
I also have this fear of becoming old and dumb. Which everyone does. To counteract that, I aim to learn and read continually so I can do things besides drool and watch CBS as I turn elderly.