Thoughts from Italy

So, I just got back from Italy a few weeks ago, though I can't exactly claim that that's the only reason I haven't posted anything in a while... At any rate, since the point of this blog is to point out the practical parts of Italian (and learning it) that might get lost in more "official" instruction, I thought I might take a few minutes to discuss some things that struck me on this trip.

1) Useful words and phrases
These are things you use ALL of the time, and if you don't learn them here, you'll definitely pick them up naturally before too long:

•  "Permesso" - Said in a crowded place to ask people to move for you, like every single time you ride the metro in Rome.
• "Scusi" - Keep it on your tongue while on that same metro- with the sudden starts and stops you'll be bumping into people all over the place, and this apology will be handy. Of course, everyone reading this blog should already know this word, but it's here for another reason: to reinforce my first point: when trying to get through people, "permesso" is more common that "scusi", which is more for apologizing (on the metro).
• "Prego" - Most commonly known as a response to "grazie" to mean "you're welcome", it's also used to say "after you", or "please go ahead". I promise the first time you have a traffic jam at a door, back up, point through and kindly say "prego", you'll feel the "immersion rush" of interacting naturally with someone in their native environment.

2) Getting someone to speak italian with you is hard!
At least in the touristy areas (ie. everywhere you're likely to go... venice, florence, rome, etc) most people who interact with tourists regularly speak basic english... and like to use it. This can feel both frustrating and discouraging, with you thinking that your italian must be absolutely horrible or something*. After 4 trips, I've come to learn to ignore it. Just try to communicate, using whichever language happens to come out. I've found that usually in a normal discussion it can flip back and forth several times, with both parties making the flip. You say something in italian, they respond in english, you reply in english, they come back with italian. My main point is this: If you really want to find a true immersion experience and learn something, head out of town, and away from the tourists.

*After my first trip to Italy, I almost quit studying italian because of this, thinking that it was useless because "everyone knows english". Luckily I was wrong. English competency is actually really low in Italy, you just need to get away from places that deal with tourists!

3) Life is easier when you have basic competency in the language
Not to brag, but I did derive a rather large amount of pleasure from watching most tourists fumble around with phrase books and frustrating situations while I moved around relatively effortlessly thanks to my knowledge of the language. There were several times that I directly saw the benefit of all of the thousands of hours I've put into Italian- from being directed to the head of the line after joking with the doorman, to building a better relationship with the hotel owner resulting in a gift of tiramisu from the best shop in town- it's sometimes nice to realize why you put so much time into something. 

At any rate, these are just a few of the main things that came to mind. My goal with these 3 points was basically to teach, inform, and encourage in that order, so hopefully I was successful at least once! Please feel free to comment with any realizations or tips of your own!