Let my steeple snow!

Language students are frequently reminded to notice cognates. But as with the Ides of March, beware the false cognates! One student studying in Chile, as urban legend has it, was taken to the hospital after a series of fractured conversations with her host family. She wanted to say, “Yes, I’m sorry. I feel so embarrassed.” Embarazada, right? In Spanish, embarazada is pregnant. Not embarrassed. Occhio!

Besides hospital visits, there are of course many reasons to learn another language. Ordering in a restaurant or discussing food can also be fraught with danger. Mark relates a story of his first summer here in Italy when responded to a question about his favorite recent meal by saying that he had really enjoyed i cappellini. “Really?” “Yes, i cappellini were very tasty.” Now, capellini is angel hair pasta but maybe only in the United States? And yes, the two ps make a difference in Italian. Mark’s friends soon informed him that he had been extolling the gustatory virtues of “cute little hats.” Maybe they were just pulling his gambe...

Living in a country where English is mostly an amateur sport, I have had ample time to consider language. As many of you know, I taught in an English/Spanish bilingual classroom in New York City for two years. Through that experience and my graduate studies, I learned more than I want to remember about BICS v. CALP, comprehensible input, Krashen’s theories on the stages of second language acquisition and the psychology of affective filters, and... Sorry, the dormant grad student in me took hold of the keyboard there for a moment.

Recently I have been curious about focusing on my own Italian language development. Through self-examination I thought perhaps light could dawn on Marblehead, to use an old New England saw. I turned to an old stand-by, the Student Oral Language Observation Matrix (SOLOM), which assesses five categories: Comprehension, Fluency, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, and Grammar. The matrix is scored on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 signifies “has no proficiency” and 5 means “approaches native fluency.”

To improve the accuracy of the test, I tried to approximate lifelike testing conditions. I installed a speaker on the wall that occasionally spit loud gibberish. I taped some of my artwork and a recent spelling test by the window. I instructed my roommate to throw erasers at me. For breakfast I ate three pounds of Twizzlers. After the test, I decided that I rate a high 2 or low 3. I scored especially well on Comprehension, not surprisingly as this area is usually the first to develop.

My Vocabulary is okay, given the number of cognates from English and Spanish. But there is certainly room for improvement. I give you Example #1, translated from the Italian, in the case for “This guy often doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

My Italian friend and I were talking in a bar.
Me: “Look at those Jews over there.”
Friend: “Excuse me?”
M: “Yeah, those two Jews over there are crazy, huh?”
F: “Ummm... What do you mean?”
M: “Look at them. They’re talking loudly, gesturing wildly, making a scene. [Snort] Jews.”
F: “What?!”
M: “Those two Jews. Yikes. That’s embarrassing.”
F: “......... No. Not Jews – drunks. They’re drunks.”
M: “Uh... right. Drunks. Thanks.”

Obviously in English this would be an egregious offense. In my defense, however, the words are close in Italian. You be the judge: ebraico – Jewish; ubriaco – drunk. A related note: this “Italian Friend,” who speaks English well, had thought for years that the Beatles had been singing, “Hey, Jew, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better...” The Chosen People are everywhere!

For more fun with words, I recommend a site I found through friend Bleeding Espresso. Free Rice - a vocabulary game that rewards achievement with donations to the United Nations World Food Program.

Rub a dub dub

Most travelers abroad have their favorite examples of mistranslation they have encountered, either to or from (in my, and probably your, case) English. Signs that warn of unexpected and unlikely dangers (If pulled too hard, toilet will hurricane onto floor.). Stores selling jeans that are the “nitgest level to wear.” A customer who orders breast milk instead of whole milk. And, of course, movie titles given unusual twists.

I learned today that Tremors, that 1990 Kevin Bacon vehicle, is called in German Land Of The Rocket Worms. Don’t ask me how I came upon this information, just know that my source is somewhere on the Interweb and is therefore above reproach. On a related note, I had a friend in college whose brother knew a guy in Brazil who could get you cashews, but that’s another story.

Last night, I had the distinct pleasure of watching the last 20 minutes of Pallottola spuntata 33 1/3 (Dulled Bullet 33 1/3), better known in the English-speaking world as Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult. It was an unusual movie watching experience. I had to stand in one place in the living room, between two drying racks full of clothes, because if I moved the picture went static and the sound went bonkers. I could only understand one out of ten words that Leslie Neilson and the others were saying. [Allegedly, nearly all movies coming into the country are dubbed into Italian. I guess I had better get learning.] Additionally, the cast of Dulled Bullet 33 1/3 - Mary Lou Retton, Weird Al Jankovic, James Earl Jones, Anna Nicole Smith, OJ Simpson, Vanna White, and others - has had a checkered run of it since the movie’s release, adding a rearview mirror peculiarity. But, thankfully slapstick comedy transcends language. As is so often the case, the little things add bouyancy to life, like thousands of ping-pong balls glued to an elephant.