Spoiler alert: Not good!

At school, I loved learning French – maybe it was because I found it relatively easy to pick up or most likely, it was because I was taught by one of the best but ultimately frightening teachers I had ever experienced in my school career. Either way, I thought my performance in French meant I was quite good at picking up languages and if I ever travelled or lived in another country I wouldn’t be the stereotypical English person who has to gesture and shout to get my point across. Now, I am not saying I have had to resort to shouting, but a part of me does die in embarrassment when I have to say the words ‘I don’t understand, I’m English’, especially when you consider I have lived in Modena for 11months.

I want to stress this point – my lack of understanding the Italian language has not been through a lack of trying. I have tried so hard and when I moved here all bright eyed and bushy tailed, I honestly thought living in a country, especially to a place where English is not spoken regularly due to the lack of tourism, it would be a piece of cake. I was immersed. I had to get by by speaking the native language but what I didn’t consider was this – I was teaching and speaking English all day. If you meet students outside of school, they want to speak English and strangers, once they find out you are English, you guessed it -they want to practice their English. In 11 months, I am yet to meet an Italian who said ‘oh fantastic, do you want to practice your Italian?’ It doesn’t happen.

Frustratingly, before we entered lockdown 8 months ago, I was out a lot in the city centre, mixing with the locals and as a result my confidence (always improved after a couple of beers) meant my production, pronunciation and vocabulary had improved. When my parents came to visit just before we entered lockdown, I was very proud to show them my Italian skills: ordering drinks, booking tables in restaurants and speaking to strangers who approached us in the pubs due to hearing us speak English and play games like ‘Pass the Pigs’. I was really starting to understand the language, could roll my ‘Rs’ without having to think about it too much and enjoyed interacting with people for a little longer without having to say ‘Sorry, I don’t understand – I’m English’.

Unfortunately, like with many things, once we entered lockdown, my new found confidence speaking and understanding of Italian disappeared. Living in an apartment with a fellow Englishman, adapting our teaching for the new online platform meant I was too tired and to be honest, had no real motivation to keep practicing and improving. At times it was quite easy to forget I was living in a foreign country because people did not talk to you when you were at the supermarket due to the paranoia Covid caused. In retrospect I should have tried speaking Italian with my housemate as he is a fluent Italian speaker but I just couldn’t be bothered. After teaching online for 7hrs, often finishing work at 9:00pm, the last thing you want to do is practice Italian. So, I let it regress – a lot.

On the 17th July, I left Italy to head to Menorca and spent some time at home which was most definitely needed. Working through lockdown was good on one hand because it kept us busy, earning money and I learnt new skills for the new way we were teaching. But on the other hand it was simply exhausting. We weren’t meeting people in person, we were living in our bedrooms and there was no escape from work. I needed a holiday, spend time with friends and family and see my dog.

After spending time in Menorca and home, I came back to Italy re-energised and more determined to hone my language skills in both Italian and for some reason I still can’t really fathom, Spanish. Now, my Spanish knowledge is even worse than my Italian but what I do know, thanks to my housemate who can seem to speak any language effortlessly without trying, Italian and Spanish are closely related. I started studying Italian again with a book I have on my kindle, downloaded Duolingo and surprised myself with how many words I remembered or at least understood – I mean I couldn’t have a conversation with someone but baby steps.

As I just mentioned, my housemate loves languages. He has a real knack for them and seems to know so much about different languages so it can be a little intimidating when you are mastering ‘buenos tardes’ and he is having full blown conversations in Portuguese after only 3 days. Three weeks ago, we were speaking about languages and he told me about a language learning app called Tandem that he had been using to improve his Portuguese. You create a profile, say the languages you are able to speak, languages you want to learn – and your level, and interests. People are then suggested to you to start conversations.

Due to Dan using this app for a couple of weeks and having interesting conversations with native Portuguese speakers, I thought it would be a really good way to further my understanding of Italian and Spanish. If Dan hadn’t been using it for a couple of weeks and wasn’t having interesting conversations,I would have dismissed it but it was Dan. He was learning a lot and there was no seediness… how wrong was I?!

I sat there, downloaded the app and completed my profile. Within 5 minutes of my profile going active, I received 15 messages from people (men) in Colombia, Argentina,Sicily, Spain and Italy. My housemate couldn’t believe it – he had been on it for 3 weeks and was only talking to 3 people. Despite the app clearly stating it was not a dating app, these men didn’t care. Quickly, I learnt the Spanish for ‘are you single?’, ‘do you have a husband?’ or ‘do you have children?’. It was unbelievable. I started talking to a teacher in Seville and he seemed quite normal initially. My opinion of him changed after asking me ‘de que color es tu lenceria?’ followed by some other rather questionable questions.

Despite the strange men I initially encountered, I stuck with the app because using Italian and Spanish frequently meant my understanding and production was improving and that is what I wanted. I cleansed my inbox and deleted the people I found to be strange or just downright weird and spoke with the one’s I thought to be relatively normal, stable and had good reviews from other users…

A gentleman called Carlos from Colombia started to talk to me, he was incredibly patient, helpful and most importantly married (I know this because a photo of him and his wife was his profile picture). We were having a very pleasant conversation regarding life in Colombia, Italy and our hobbies but this apparently wasn’t fulfilling enough for him. Out of nowhere, he said something which proves certain things are unattractive in every language- I am not going to write it in English but you can translate it if you wish… Quiero mostrarte mi aprecio por ti. I mean, it is vile isn’t it?!

Obviously, my Spanish for such a statement was not good enough so I turned to my trusty google translate app and a sense of dread washed over me. Due to not wanting to engage any further with this gentleman, I didn’t reply and I honestly thought a non-reply in any language was pretty easy to understand. Carlos however wasn’t going to give up that easily. Instead he sent a photo – an explicit photo of his penis and it was horrifying. I showed my housemate the photo and I honestly don’t think he has forgiven me. Again, I did not respond to the photo which I would have thought was an incredibly clear F*** Off but alas, Carlos was persistent. So persistent in fact that I had to block him.

I tried not to let this experience overshadow the positives of using such an app because Dan was still using it and experiencing no such problems. I tell a lie, once he was talking to a muslim gentleman who it turned out was trying to get him to convert to Islam but I mean, I would take that over receiving dick pics from a strange married man in Colombia. I saw the improvements in my language skills and persisted until it all got too much. I thought this was going to be an enjoyable pastime, something to do an hour a day because no-one wants to spend all day learning languages and I wrongly presumed the people I was talking to had lives and more importantly jobs. Instead, the people I was building a rapport with – them helping me with my Spanish/Italian, me with their English, started to get incredibly arsey if I didn’t reply for a couple of hours because god forbid I was working, or having a life. It was after a couple of less than savoury messages that I decided to delete my account.

Shockingly, once I deleted my profile and app, my newfound Italian and Spanish skills almost instantly disappeared and due to having no money, it meant I am unable to go out to mingle with the locals. However, I keep reminding myself that it is a good thing that I am not getting strange messages and dirty pictures from men I have not met. Instead I just attract the strange man in Sigma (our local supermarket) who seems to be the only person in Modena who is able to speak English and can understand a very firm English ‘go away’ after he follows you around the supermarket putting unwanted items into your basket when he thinks you aren’t looking.

So now, I am sat in my flat writing this and laughing. Laughing at my efforts and laughing at the improvements I have made but have nothing to show for them. Learning languages for some is not an easy task and I feel I have tried everything to try improve my Italian skills. I will continue to study – books, podcasts, Duolingo but I will never, ever join another language learning app. I have learnt my lesson and it wasn’t an enjoyable one. Instead, I am going to remind myself that I can order drinks and swear rather proficiently in Italian so I think I will be just fine moving forward and if I do encounter any problems or language barriers, 9 times out of 10, Dan is with me and he can translate! I will just keep getting beers as a thank you. That is where my skill set lies and I am perfectly fine with that!