Claire

As previously mentioned in another blog of mine, I have this undying dream to live in Italy, it truly is where my heart is. The only thing that is stopping me moving there at the moment (well, apart from the obvious fact that I’m a university student and currently living off of my student loan) is the fact that I can’t speak Italian.

You would have thought I’d have learnt the language of my favourite country, but you see - it’s not my fault. I’ve always been completely inept when it comes to languages. I learnt French for 15 years and my parents tried to bring me up bilingual, but for some unknown reason I can’t speak a word of French… apart from the obvious Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?, and I’m really not the type of girl who makes much use of that phrase, and if I was? Well… I doubt my boyfriend would appreciate me running around saying that to lots of French men!.

So why am I so hideously bad at languages and will I ever fulfil my dream of living in pastures new? (pastures new being Italy, of course!). My father is a multi-lingual genius… he’s fluent in French and Italian and can speak many other languages as well, for some reason he has this talent for visiting a country and coming back speaking like he’s a native - his pronunciation and accents are absolutely amazing as well. It’s just so unfair. I inherited many things from my dad - a fiery temper, a keen eye for photography and a tendency to rant about politics, but when it comes down to languages, he definitely kept all the skills for himself.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to learn Italian, my dad has tried to teach me numerous times, but the words just don’t seem to sink in. I can say “Non parlo Italiano sonne Inglese”, which means “I don’t speak Italian, I’m English” and I probably haven’t even spelt it right!. So anyway, this one phrase I can say is hardly going to help me when I venture off to Italy in search of a house, can you imagine… there I am in Italy trying to form some meaningful friendships and all I can say is “I don’t speak Italian, I’m English”, yeah… I somehow don’t think that will work.

Even though I seem like a hopeless case I shall persevere and maybe one day I’ll learn to speak Italian and then I can finally make my dream a reality!.