Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: No longer the silent partner

tratto da un giornale inglese :)))  :
I've decided learn my girlfriend's mother tongue, purely so that we can make
jibes at vicious racists in public. That's what multilingualism is all
about.
My girlfriend is Italian. Or, to be more precise, she is Italian, Israeli,
Moroccan, Lebanese and French. I am English. Or, to be more precise ... I am
English. Together, our sparkling relationship encompasses a rainbow of
international colour and resonates with an orchestra of world tongues. She
sings her way through a chorus of Italian, French, English, Hebrew and
Spanish. I speak English. Sometimes I speak English with an Italian accent.
Mostly I just speak English. Next week I am going to visit her in Italy and
I just know that once again my language skills are going to make me look
like a complete twat.
I know how it works, because I've done it countless times before. We'll get
dressed up and go to a bar, me excited to meet her friends, she anxious to
introduce me. The friends will be there radiating Italian exuberance at the
thought of meeting the boy they've heard so much about. We'll meet, shake
hands, do the double-cheek-kiss dance, I'll say "ciao, piacere" when they
tell me their names and then I'll close my mouth, smile inanely and look at
the floor, mumbling incoherently about having not quite mastered Italian
yet. They, in turn, will regard me with an expression of sympathy normally
reserved for an aging, incontinent labrador.
"You're English," they'll say - in English. "Si" I'll reply, to show that,
if nothing else, the intent is there. But then they'll apologise by telling
me how bad their English is. And of course I'll try to explain to them that
their English is better than my Italian and after all I'm in Italy and it
should be me making the effort. But their looks will tell me that I'm
wasting my breath - clearly there is no way that they expect me to be able
to speak Italian. So I'll fall silent and look at the floor again. And the
odour of dying dog will return to the room.
But, eager to prove my worth to her friends, my girlfriend will make me
demonstrate the one Italian phrase that she has taught me. "Go on! Go on!"
she'll urge, and the others will join in, genuinely excited to see the
tricks I've learnt. And so, under their benevolent gazes, I'll turn to the
barman and say, in my best Italian accent, "potrei avere un bicchiere di
vino rosso". The roar of the crowd will already have started as the barman
pours my wine, and I'll turn back to my girlfriend with her expression of
motherly pride, and clap my hands and bark, as her friends throw me fish.
Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly inadequate, I feel the need to
remind my girlfriend that I actually got an A* in GCSE Russian and French.
And again her pride is palpable, as she ruffles my hair playfully and tells
me to go and run around in the garden. I usually ignore her advice and
instead throw stones at a tree, cursing the day I was born English, with
language skills to match.
Almost everywhere I've ever been, people can speak English. Of course, all
this fluency is great, as it's meant I've been able to communicate with
people from all over the world. Great that is, until they want to make a sly
aside, or hold a private conversation, at which point I'm in the dark. And
therein lies the rub. Because let's be honest, the real reason for learning
another language is not to be able to communicate with people from distant
and diverse cultures. It's to be able to call someone "cock monkey" without
them knowing. And that is the crux of the issue.
I mean, we can't even get away with sly, racist jibes any more. Like the
idiot stood next to me on the night bus on Saturday night, complaining that
he "never knew it was this bad! Look at em. It ain't even England. Seriously
I'm gonna move up north - at least it's English up there." Poor guy. He
couldn't even get away with a bit of vicious racism without the damn
foreigners understanding.
But as I stood on that 29, swaying and rocking with a mass of drunken
bodies, the bus lurching its way back up to North London, I listened to the
chaotic chirrup of French, Turkish, Greek, Italian, Farsi, Arabic, Hindi and
Spanish that babbled its way around me. I compared it to the insane drone of
the English boy next to me, " ... It's no wonder there's all them
stabbings - look at em all ... " and I knew which side I needed to be on.
Which is why I've bought myself a small Italian exercise book. And when I go
out to visit my girlfriend next week, I will be prepared to be as much of a
dancing monkey as she wants me to be. So that one day, in the
not-too-distant future, she and I will be travelling home from a night out,
inebriated amongst a cocktail of foreign voices, and I will catch a glimpse
of that lone racist, scowling at the back of the bus, muttering about the
ruin of the nation. And I'll say something aloud to my girlfriend and she'll
laugh - perhaps even kiss me - and we'll head on our way. And deep down I'll
know that I've just called a racist a cock monkey and there's absolutely
nothing he can do about it. For that, after all, is what multilingualism is
all about.


... and I waited until the last minute to start studying Italian. Pathetic!