Monday, January 4, 2010

Ciao...mi chiamo Robin e scrivo romanzi....


"My name is Robin and I write novels."

That's about the only thing I've perfected so far as I try and learn Italian. I've said it so many times aloud that I swear Onyx, one of my cats, has taken to rolling her eyes.

So I studied French from grade 7 all the way through college. 10 years. And you'd think that after all that time and effort, I would have tried to keep it up. But I didn't. Which is why 20 years later, I can't say I'm fluent in French, and yet it keeps getting in the way of me learning Italian.

And that's why I've decided that I will start a new language...Fritalian. Where we will say things like "Bonjour! Come stai?" (Hi--in French--How are you? -- in Italian).

That being said, Italian is a really beautiful language and there are enough similarities to French that at some point something will click and it'll get easier (at least that's what I tell myself.)

I'm not a big resolution-maker, but learning Italian is definitely on the list of Things-I-want-to-do-in-2010-but-I'm-not-going-to-call-them-resolutions-in-case-I-fail-miserably.

And cooking. Definitely more cooking.

And buying an apartment (which translates to please-buy-lots-and-lots-of-my-books-so-I-can-afford-to-do-that).

AND BLOGGING ON A REGULAR BASIS. That's #1 on the non-resolution list.

Happy happy new year, anyone who is reading this--even the people who post anonymous comments that are obviously computer-generated.

xx

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

love your books :)

Marla Martenson said...

I LOVE Italian and French too.. French is my second language, then Spanish and I do have to switch gears when I speak French now because I speak a lot of Spanish at home with my husband. I used to speak French at home when I was married to a French chef, and at the same time I was taking Spanish and Persian classes. In conversation my brain would literally freeze from the confusion.