Friday 15 May 2009

Italian voice

Sometimes the smallest thing can make your day. It happened to me yesterday, when I had a bit of a chat with a colleague. She studied Italian for years and is very good at it and she knows a bit of French, she wants to improve it, so she speaks to me in French. I try to answer with my very limited Italian, mixed with some French and English when I can't find the words, which is very often. Anyway, I couldn't say much, so I used my usual line: "Io parlo bene italiano ma non capisco una sola parola" (I speak Italian very well, but cannot understand a single word). She was quite impressed and said "but you've got a Neapolitan accent". It is strange, as I have never been anywhere near Naples and most of my Italian friends were from the North. Maybe I got it from all that time spent listening to opera. I said it before, it seems that I am gifted for Italian, so it is a shame that I never learned it properly. But to know that I could get an authentic accent (or somewhat authentic anyway) made me feel quite happy.

2 comments:

PJ said...

Peut-être as-tu trop mangé de crème glacée trois couleurs quand t'étais petit. Te rappelles-tu des gâteaux trois couleurs du boulanger?

Guillaume said...

Je ne crois pas que la napolitaine m'a influencé sur mes dons en italien. Je ne l'aimais quand même pas tant que ça et je ne savais pas que ça s'appelait "crème glacée napolitaine". Pour moi, c'était de la "trois couleurs". Mais oui, je me rappelle les gâteaux trois couleurs, enfin vaguement. La nostalgie des desserts pourrait faire l'objet d'un autre billet.