8/15/14 7:18 PM

with erik's wonderful ongoing adult-ed story (along with my wife's, too)...finally got off'n my arse and i just registered for an italian language class. we're planning on heading over next year and like to make an honest effort to communicate with the locals when in foreign lands.

it's an easy 8-week starter. will follow up with a couple more advancing sessions. i'd *really* like to learn flemish/dutch...been dabbling DIYing some nederlands, but actually talking to others really makes language learning stick.

8/15/14 10:33 PM

Bellissimo!!!! Buono.



I former coworker used Rosette Stone to learn languages (5). He learned all of them well enough to pass the language tests for each that would add to his pay. I was impressed by him to say the least. BTW he was a fighter pilot and rocked a 140+ IQ. Well above most fighter pilots even who all tend to pretty bright. That could be a cheaper route and less time in a class room if your don't have the time required to go to class.

8/15/14 10:39 PM

Cyril: Hey! Are you really gonna shave your legs?

Dave: Certo! All the Italians do it.

Mike: Ah. Some country. The women don't shave theirs.

8/16/14 7:05 AM

Very admirable and I hope you get fluent and have a ball with it. I've decided to defer further education to my next life.

8/16/14 7:38 AM

quote:

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...former coworker used Rosette Stone to learn languages...

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8/16/14 12:11 PM

Just understand that there are dialects of Italian and the spoken language can vary widely from one part of the country to another.

"Posso avere polenta con funghi" got blank stares in the Italian Alps. English they understood. Go figure. This was at a northern ski mountain - Cervinia.

8/16/14 12:50 PM

"dialects of Italian"

No doubt. I think the difference between Pasta Fasul and Pasta Fagioli is about 300 miles...

8/18/14 12:57 PM

"Kann ich Polenta mit Pilzen" may have been more apropos as German is commonly spoken in the Italian Alps, too.

8/18/14 5:10 PM

Yeah, but the menu was in Italian. Go figure.

8/18/14 7:59 PM

kann ich meinen bleistift spitzen, bitte?

i still remember a fair bit of high school german, enough to get by should i happen to be transported to der weimar republik!

8/18/14 9:20 PM

quote:

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Yeah, but the menu was in Italian

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8/23/14 12:44 PM

Bravo, singore! Sono a Venezia per tre giorni, fino a martedì. Mi piace Italiano molto bene...e una lingua molto bella! Buon viaggio!

8/24/14 2:38 AM

April, I'm sorry but your blanket statement couldn't be more off-target. Languages and dialects throughout Italy is a complex and still not wholly agreed-upon topic. A little basic research will show that fairly quickly.

Plus, I'm writing this from northern Italy and have yet to hear a local speaking German...solo I touristi. ;)

8/25/14 10:53 AM

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northern Italy is more than German SPEAKING, they're more GERMAN, period.

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8/25/14 1:02 PM

Sorry, my use of "northern Italy" is clearly the wrong phrase for what I intended, which was the Italian Alps as in Parkin's original post.

But I now understand that only part of the Italian Alps had strong German roots. Thanks for correcting my mis-conception.

8/25/14 3:06 PM

Ah-h-h, Venezia. Some really good restaurants, but you have to wander off of the beaten path (of which there are many) to find them.

8/25/14 7:51 PM

You have to wander around late at night and get thoroughly lost in the spooky little byways to fully appreciate the bizarre magic of Venice. It's completely amazing that people ever built such a thing, and have lived there for more than a thousand years.

8/25/14 8:56 PM

I found Venice spooky enough even during the day, as soon as I step off the beaten path!

Granted, I was there in the middle of winter, few tourists around even in the main drag.

8/26/14 8:21 AM

Don't watch Nicolas Roeg's brilliant psychological thriller "Don't Look Now" before you visit Venice.

8/28/14 8:12 PM

Venice. This was my first time there and it was amazing. I spent three days and probably walked +50k. I wandered though most of the city and even though I have a good sense of direction you really have no clue where you actually are most of the time as you can rarely see more than a a few dozen metres in any direction. A crazy, confusing, and gloriously beautiful place.

I've made my facebook album with some of my pics public

As an added bonus to my trip I started in Athens and got to check a big one off my bucket list and visit the Parthenon.

8/28/14 8:53 PM

Rob, thanks for sharing. Do the canals offend BTW?

8/28/14 9:16 PM

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Do the canals offend BTW?

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8/28/14 9:22 PM

Does the water exude a less than desirable odor?

8/29/14 6:55 AM

Oh, right. I honestly have no idea. I have the world's worst sense of smell. They very well could have, but I never noticed it.

8/29/14 9:57 AM

Cool, Rob. I'll check out your FB photos when I can. My daughter is in Trieste at the moment, as it happens.

Sparky, I think the stinky water is an occasional phenomenon, very dependant on weather, tides, rainfall flushing out the lagoon, etc. The two times I've been there - August and February - I never noticed any smell, nor saw water that looked particularly dirty. And I am pretty sensitive to smells.