On the Road with Julie

Time to Read:

Nothing like a good slice of humble pie to start your morning. I must admit, my two weeks of Italian study got me feeling, not too big for my britches exactly, but, well, might comfy in them. I have been pleasantly surprised, constantly amazed and riding the high of how quickly I’ve been able to advance in Italian. It’s been one day after another of teeny victories and patting myself on the back for kind of crushing it as far as language learning goes. It’s a pretty neat feeling, for many reasons, not the least of which is the excitement of getting to feast on the delicious Italian language – an absolute symphony of sound to hear and to do my best to wield enough to speak a little.

But, no matter how much progress I have made – I still have only 2 weeks of Italian under my belt and all of the incapacities to back that up. I have now crossed the midway point of my trip. And, since I am about to head into 3 months of a linguistic ass-kicking, after two weeks of risking getting cocky, it was fantastically useful to get to the airport and have the security guy say a bunch of words in my general direction and to stare at him, blank-faced.

I have been aware, over the past 2 weeks that I need to temper my expectations, after 2 weeks of soaring from A0 in Italian to A2, very much thanks to my base in Spanish and French, together with my insatiable hunger for language acquisition and the fact that, after 3 month of orienting my entire life around language learning, my language fitness is in tip top shape. Something tells me my progress in Russian (of which I already have a really solid base), Chinese and Japenese might not be quite as kind to me. I expect no linguistic mercy. I expect to sweat. I expect to survive on a constant diet of humble pie – so I’m glad, after two weeks without it, I got a taste of it shoved into my face at the Rome airport.

Not only did I not understand what the airport security gentleman said to me – I didn’t even recognize what he had said as words, let alone Italian words, let alone words that had a meaning that I could discern. Usually I can latch onto something recognizable and then do my best to deduce the rest from context. Nope. Nothing.

I was left with only one tool in my arsenal.

“Non capisco.” I don’t understand. The white flag is fully raised. I leave Rome requesting that what was just said be said in English. Ouch.

Okay, so, room for improvement. Roger that.

And, such is the language learning journey. No matter how many victories you have, there is never a slice of humble pie too far away from you. It either gets served to you warm with a nice scoop of ice scream or thrown in your face three-stooges style. Either way, I am a glutton for it. It’s strange, I know, but part of what I love about language learning is how often it reminds you how wonderfully small and inadequate you are. I know – most people don’t like that feeling. I love it. It dips me into a sea of awe and amazement at HOW MUCH we humans are capable to do and how much we take for granted and how amazing it is that we know anything at all. It gives me a sense of excitement at how much there is to learn and how much I could potentially learn with a little more time, and a little more effort. I like feeling small. The universe is so big and I like feeling like the little speck that I am floating somewhere in the immensity of it all – doing my best to have a lovely time making my way through it in my own teeny little part of it. Interestingly, it actually makes the feelings inside of me bigger. More perspective, more awe, more appreciation, more excitement.

And lucky for me, language learning is happy to constantly remind me of my diminutive size in context of the immensity of it all. Over. And over. And over.

Don’t get me wrong, every time a language reminds me that I have way more yet to learn than I have already learned, it is also a minor gut-punch, a slight, “aw, crap”. It does sting a little. But that, to me, is a weirdly fun part of the adventure too – like the joy of sore muscles and scraped kneecaps as you do your best to fight gravity’s persuasions while you climb up a mountain. It’s a “hurts so good” kind of wonderful madness.

So, I’m going to board my plan from Rome today, really happy with my time in this wonderful place, tremendously proud of all that I have accomplished linguistically in my two weeks here, and with a belly nice and full of humble pie to give me all the nutrients I need to face the linguistic adventures that lie ahead.

Onward!