Say ‘Ciao’ to speaking too tensely

JUNE CASAGRANDE

I’m planning a trip to Italy, and I’m very excited. I’ve even

enrolled in an Italian language class. The trip will, no doubt, be a

life-enriching experience, one I’ll carry with me always, bridging

cultural divides over the years as I use my newfound Italian language

skills to wow native speakers with tales of my travels that sound a

little something like this: “I go to Italy. I see Florence. I eat

pasta. I visit museums. I an idiot.”

Why will I be speaking like a walking caricature of a brain-dead,

monolingual American? I’ll let the authors of my new Italian textbook

explain: “This book will attempt to make it as easy and as enjoyable

as possible for you to learn to speak and understand basic Italian.

For your purposes, you will need a few important grammatical skills

and a basic vocabulary of about 1,000 words. You will learn only the

present and imperative tenses, which is really all you will need in

order to communicate your needs and intentions.”

The “only present and imperative tenses” part was, for me, the

kicker.

In horror, I read the above passage to my boyfriend, Ted, then

told him about a Spanish instruction text I once had that said

exactly the opposite. That book emphasized the past tense because the

author said it was the useful one.

“Huh. Why would they do that?” Ted asked.

“Because people are so terrified of or turned off by grammar,

they’d rather shoot themselves in the foot than get near the

subject.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly how I said it. My real reply was more

like, “Stupid, scared-of-grammar, don’t know nuthins.” (Words are a

weapon I brandish with terrifying precision, don’t you know?)

There’s much debate in educational circles on the best way to

teach foreign languages. Some say hard-core, academic,

sit-yourself-down-and- learn-it-the-hard-way approaches work best.

Others say practical approaches work best. That is, teach people the

stuff they’ll really use and relate it as much as possible to the

language they know by pointing out similarities such as “correction”

and “correzione.”

Others say the academic method works better on younger minds,

while the handy-dandy-useful method is better once your brain tissue

has hardened a bit. I’m not a teacher and can’t pretend to know any

better. All I can tell you is what works best for me: Make me

conjugate, teach me the “irregulars,” don’t be afraid to use words

like “object pronoun” and “past imperfect.” Make me think.

I understand that may not be true for everyone, and I know that

practicality counts. But when language textbooks doom me to forever

saying, “Yesterday I eat much pasta and I get very full, so tomorrow

I eat only salad and that help me get thin,” something is seriously,

seriously wrong.

That’s like taking piano lessons from a teacher who doesn’t want

to overwhelm you with all those scary notes and lines, so he just

teaches you how to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Chopsticks” by

ear.

If there’s one point I hammer home over and over again in this

column, it’s that no one should be intimidated by grammar. You don’t

have to like it, but if you feel like you’re one of the ignorant ones

who will never be able to speak or write well without redoing four

years of high school, then you’re simply the victim of a common

misperception. Grammar terminology -- dangling participles and

predicate nominatives -- might be a turn-off, but that doesn’t mean

the subject is beyond your reach.

As you can tell, I’m a little bummed by what I read in my Italian

book. It’s just a shame: So many people have such a bad taste in

their mouths left over from whatever grammar they learned in high

school that language teachers simply cave in.

I’m going online now to do a Web search for “Italian verb

conjugations.” A simple chart, a short list of the major verbs that

don’t comply with the chart, and I’ll have in my brain some learning

that might actually stick.

Ciao.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer. She can be reached at

[email protected].