veritas vos libera

And the truth will set you free - veritas vos libera

Copycat-ing a posting off this super woman's blog Pipit la Genèvoise (salut ma pote, ça va toi? Courage et bonne chance pour tes projets, ok.) and I'm just tilting the bucket at a slightly off-angle perspective. Turn it over and voilà you get yourself a list of problems [or as my big fat (she ain't Greek though) woman boss repeatedly declared, those are not problems,  just difficult challenges!] for the uninitiated in learning Romance languages. It may result in more than a few spins of the head and scratches off your scalp.

Knowledge knows no boundary. I personally could have attempted to drive myself into the awful, horrible, horrendously horrid world of Nihongo, the Japanese language. Why not? The opportunity presented itself more than a few occasions. There're more than a handful of Japanese people, the festivals, the films aired night after night. The wasabi land is, after all, our largest trading partner and jobs requiring japanese speaking skill was never to see the word scarce in this town where the Opera meets the Harbour.

Or the arguably the "business language" of the future, what with the craze with everyone's wanting a slice of the chinese economic pie. Could easily have materialised, no doubt about it.

So what had my 19-year old life experience taught me? There's more to life than chasing a truckload of cash, and believe me if it was hard enough convincing your mates, family, close ones that the Asian economic Renaissance that's to emerge so you gotta be ready to jump at it at the first chance seemed lacklustre to me, then getting a grip for yourself was literally having a bitter pill forced down your throat.

Economically, it was cool, hey I'm all for it, good on us! Nothing wrong with it, really. I honestly enjoyed the Asian culture, our culture where each one is as unique as the next. My reasoning was no DNA molecularisation science, it was that at this stage of my life it wasn't the thing for me. It just didn't cut.

So what's in it for me? Well, I guess everyone needs a reason, a motivation, that tingling buzz that pushes your off the edge. Mine was rather, hey wouldn't it be nice to speak another language (other than English) and at the same time get the respect from your peer? You see, being a non-native English speaker is hard, despite my okay proficiency it dawned to me I'll never pass as a one of them.  The locals judge you severely -though they may not say it out loud- from the moment you open your big mouth. So why worrying the unworthy? Defying the rule of Anglo imperialism wasn't the smartest thing to do.

Then I was walking around town with all the free time in the world. Had no job. No nothing. I was kinda new in this town. So yeah, why not meeting new people, a new lot who has a similar interest and up for a bit of fun. So I came on the enrolment day to one of the government colleges in the city centre.

Signing up for the French class was a breeze. In a way, it was a chic thing (or rather, the chic thing) in Anglosphere - only the brightest get to learn French. Heck, I may impress my housemates and dates. And possibly my potential employers too.

Second time round, Italian was even a no thinker. It came like that. I'd explored a bit of Paris, did okay in restaurant and didn't mix up my order in the boulangerie, and it was time to head for Rome and I want to order that absolutely enticing looking sambaglione gelato in their own tongue. And what was with the hand gesture? These Italos sure look comical to me! And where's the punctuation in the speech, surely it's an art to speak a volley of singsong words like that. Only one way to find out.

And that's the tale of a Macchiato, my friend.

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Over two millenia ago, the grand daddies in Rome loved to impose their superior way of life. Their subjects were to (try and) speak the same thing as their most beloved Senators. Easy to point out that it was also to implant a certain degree of loyalty and ensure all citizens of the Empire are treated equally. But those who lived in the provinces were more sceptical, sure they were scared shitless of Caesar and his mates, but think about it for a minute, why should we change our way of life, nothing wrong with it.

And that's how we got the off-shots (or rather, vulgarised form of Latin) the most prominent being the big five: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

I have a quick confession to make: I know nothing of the last three.

The beauty (or la bellezza in Italian) of the Romance languages family will be easily outstripped, even lost, when translated into another language; it needs to retain its «flow» and intonation in the actual form. For that very reason, Antoine St. Exupéry's literature work, the Little Prince, somewhat lost its charm upon its English edition publication. I have read both, so you may take my word if you like.

See if I could convince you: here's a piece of text, I purposely nicked it from a blog of some poor Italian champ probably named Marco crying his heart out about a long-gone sheila named Marcella. The poor fella wrote from his bleeding Italian heart! And it felt ... brilliant, sad but glistening with pure raw emotion. It ain't cheesy to me, heck I never knew this dude. Never met him. Ever. So what's the bother, you say?

Ho passato tanto tempo a rincorrerti, a tentare di strapparti quell'amore che non mi potevi, volevi dare. Mi ero rassegnato all'idea di perderti. Ti ho visto andar via, a poco a poco. Ho parato i colpi, anche quelli più duri. Ho cercato di guardare avanti, nuova gente, nuovi amori.Tutto è naufragato, come a dirmi che in quel momento eri tu quello che io volevo. Che nonostante tutto tu saresti stato ancora presente nella mia vita. Non sapevo, non potevo sapere: è bastato rivedere una tua foto, solo una foto per farmi sciogliere e ripensare al nostro amore, alla tua assenza. In questi tempi non mi sono mai stancato di maledirti, di demolirti, di considerarti bello e vuoto, una persona troppo in basso per me. Sei ricomparso, anche solo con quella fotografia, grazie a una coincidenza assurda e improbabile, per farmi capire che per dimenticarti dovevo guardare in faccia alla realtà. E' colpa mia, è tutta colpa mia, ti ho fatto scappare... Ma non potevo resistere, era troppo forte quel sentimento assurdo che bussava, spaccava il cuore il cervello l'orgoglio la dignità la ragione...

Now, I could probably tell you the guy was heralding to the world his very much weeping story. The love of his mediocre life's gone. The grand amore is finito. So the poor bugger was saying, excuse my poorly demonstrated impromptu translator wanabee urge:

I spent so much time chasing you up, trying to tie this love that you couldn't, didn't want to give me. I taught myself the idea of losing you. I saw you walked away, little by little bit by bit. The mistakes appeared to me, even those grave ones. All was ruined, how was it that you told me in one moment, yourself, that it was me that you wanted. Although you have and always been present in my life. I didn't know, couldn't know: seeing your photo, just one, was enough to make melt me and think about our very own love, about your absence. In these moments, it hasn't grown tired in me to  diss you, to demolish you, to consider you as a beatiful thing yet empty, a person too low for me .... and so on ...

See the leap of faith? The same goes for le français (the French language). One could easily find other examples where both Italian and French could produce flowery speech without sounding ... rather corny, as it was during my nanosecond translation the first time I did it. The simplicity was marvellous, our Marco didn't choose particularly big words, even a novice like me understood it well. The rythm, the flow of emotion was well expressed. Bravo, Marco!

Righty ho, so to wrap this whole touting business up. So what does a guy have to do to around here get his mates start taking up learning Romance languages? Well, if you're still focusing on your other study, that's cool, prioritiy takes place as it should. What I'll do is help give you these reasons in hoping one or two might get a hook on you. You should note these tables were sourced from how-to-learn-any-language.com so, well, you know, it's all relative.

Who's barracking for the language of Dante?

1	Why do you think Mozart composed most of his operas in italian rather than in German? And also, love your Opera!
2	Many people rate Italian as the most beautiful spoken language in the world. Or French. LOL, yea I'm so biased!
3	Italian has the highest number of words for describing food - they love it so much. And the hundreds types of pasta!
4	No need of subtitles to see Fellini's, Visconti's and Pasolini's movies !
5	Italy has more than half of Europe's Unesco-protected monument.
6	Italians are wonderful people, very talkative and eager to show you their country but they only do it in italian.
7	If you like arts, design, opera, food, this is the reference language.

Or my all time favourite:

1	French is still considered the language of excellence of the Western upper class by many people.
2	If you're serious about visiting la belle France, speaking French fluently will make a big difference.
3	Impress your date! Whisper the proper way, Je t'aime mon amour ...
4	A must for historian of diplomacy.
5	Everyone needs to have a flirt or two with a Parisian.
6	If you adore arts, France has the largest single museum on this planet.
7	For people serious about haute cuisine, French is essential to decode the menu.

I must stress this is no act of demeaning other branches of the Romance family. It's all very personal, your choice matters as greatly as mine.

Next, hopefully, I may even get to hit your button with even more convincing, honest, reasons to speak the delectable Romance tongues. Chissà, as as the Italians would say.

For now, ciao ciao from your humble language enthusiast friend
macchiato

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*grand thanks to: Ni Londo, Henny, Kutu, Amellie, for your curiosity in Italian and French.