Florence, Italy: Lingual Turning Point

I’m reaching a turning point with my Italian studies. With every language it usually happens like this: once I hit prepositions and take the time to learn them, the rest flows together. Back in 6th grade with English, Mrs. Mineart’s biweekly “preposition memorization tests” were my challenge. I never learned them and at that point I didn’t understand how they even worked in sentences or phrases. That came later though …

with Greek! In Greek my turning point where I started understanding the structure of both Greek and English was when we started doing the different types of prepositions. I didn’t master them until my 3rd year; actually, “mastery” still escapes me even though I’m pretty sure I can at least claim “competence.” With German two summers ago it worked the same way. Once I figured out which prepositions were paired with which phrases and cases, the rest of the language started making sense.

The ironic thing with Italian is that the class’ reaction to prepositions never changes! In 6th grade we freaked out and threw a fit asking what why we needed to know them. I’m still wondering that question since I graduated high school without knowing how their function in the syntax. Nevertheless, in Greek the class reacted with fervor because we had to translate them but were lacked the confidence. The basic reaction to them was to ask Dr. Schmidt to slow down, stop, and tell us exactly what would be on the test. The tests really didn’t matter besides giving a benchmark for our grades. They never do. In German the class didn’t go ballistic like before but there was definitely a lot of tension in our study sessions for it. The nice thing with that program was that most of the students in my class were over 25 (many very close to 30 actually), so the maturity held back part of the anger.

Now in Italian I’m encountering it again. We’ve had a sub in my Italian class this week since our professor is on vacation. She’s taught us some of the rules for using 4 different prepositions and the class was about to read her the riot act. I’d like to say I’d never seen such a reaction, but I have. Several of them raised up their hands and said “OK, do we need to know this for the test?” What does that matter? You need to know it for the language. The mentality of bunkering down to know it only for the exam is pointless. One of my classmates kept asking for a list of what our regular professor would be testing us on. Looking at the list brought on the question, “so we don’t need to know any adjectives?” My reaction was one of dismay. Languages are cumulative. It’s not like one could create a test using only words that we’ve covered in two weeks and nothing else. The bunkering mentality brings out the yearning for simplicity. Life isn’t simple. Languages aren’t simple. Does the grade really matter so much that the quest for it gets in the way of actually learning the language or might it possibly be better to work diligently, learn the language as best you can, and then the grade will reflect that!

I’m sorry for this rant, and it’s probably unfair to gauge my classmates’ reactions like that, but come on people — just do the work and quit freaking out! In your fourth week of learning a language, you can make mistakes. Indeed, it’s expected. So if you don’t have the correct preposition with the phrase and the professor kindly corrects you, don’t unleash the wrath — say thank you, and then try to not repeat that mistake again. If you do, it’s ok. By that time it’ll only be in your fifth week of the language.