We start each day with two hours of grammar. This is a fast moving class, as we learn a new grammatical concept almost every day. While the Italian grammar is complicated we all seem to grasp it, at least in theory. Putting it into practice is another story. This takes much longer.
After the grammar course comes two hours of conversation. Since I am not very talkative and there are about fifteen people in the class, I really don’t talk that much. So I decided to add an afternoon conversation class to my agenda. This class is much smaller, there are only four of us, so there is more opportunity to talk.
For me, speaking is always the most difficult part of language learning and being a person of few words, it tends to take me longer to speak well than the ones who immediately start chatting away, unbothered by their mistakes. I have heard that wine loosens the tongue and I wondered if it would help me to be a bit more talkative in my afternoon conversation class. Normally, I don’t drink wine because I really don’t like it that much and it doesn’t agree with me. But I thought I would try it as a language learning experiment.
With my lunch I ordered a glass of wine and when I had all but finished it, a fly landed in it. My friend pointed it out to the waiter who immediately brought me a new FULL glass. Because he had been so nice, I felt obliged to drink the second one as well. We went to our class and were doing an exercise where the letters of a word were scrambled beside a definition and we were to figure out what the word was. For some reason when I looked at that scrambled word, I thought it was hilarious and laughed until I was crying (definitely the effects of the wine). Luckily my friends laughed with me (they had had a glass of wine as well). We laughed all during the rest of the class. So, did wine help me to be more talkative in class? Not really, I couldn’t talk for laughing.
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Wow maybe I should drink more wine, even if it doesnt help my Spanish I will enjoy the process much more.
Well, we have to make learning fun, don’t we?
Hey Margo,
I enjoyed your blog. It was a nice moment in the day to relax and read your story.
Remember, “don’t drink and drive…because you might spill.”
Bryan 🙂
Thanks Bryan,
You don’t have to worry about me driving (and spilling). I haven’t driven in 10 years. I love European city living. Hope you, Patty and Ben are well.
Wine + friends + laughter + any place in Italy = winning combination!
Of course fruit flavored gelato serves as a fruit (two scoops = two fruits, etc.). Enjoy!
Great! I have been doing the right thing then… Having one for breakfast, two for lunch, and two for dinner.